Brussels, 07/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - The Language Rich Europe (LRE) consortium, which is co-funded by the European Commission and British Council, has published recommendations calling on the European institutions and member state governments to develop improved language policies. This will help to create a genuinely multilingual Europe and ensure economic competitiveness, whilst developing a more open society for all. Underlining the European Commission's commitment to promoting linguistic diversity, Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou, in charge of education, culture, youth and multilingualism, stated during a conference on 5 March examining these recommendations that “languages are a central element of our overall strategy. If we want more mobile students and workers, and businesses that can operate on a European and world scale, we need better language competences - and these must be better targeted to the current and future needs of the labour market”. Language Rich Europe is a project involving 30 partners throughout Europe, whose objective is to promote sharing awareness of best practice and policies in the teaching and learning of languages in Europe.
The recommendations published by LRE follow on from a report released last year on the European linguistic landscape that sought to map current linguistic trends and policies in Europe, “Language rich Europe: trends in policies and practices for Multilingualism in Europe”. This report highlighted an increase in the use of English and the increased number of languages spoken in Europe, following successive waves of migration that have redesigned the linguistic map of Europe over recent decades. The ability to communicate in other languages is now more essential than ever if Europeans are serious about taking advantage of much greater international opportunities and increasing their chances of finding jobs, says Language Rich Europe. New policies on language training are needed to help us adapt to increasing mobility, migration and the recent economic crisis. The main recommendations of the LRE are as follows: 1) English is the second language most often chosen in European schools; a new model to develop other languages is necessary in order to promote the diversity of languages used and spoken by Europeans; 2) the “mother tongue +2” formula promoted by the Commission must be reviewed and strengthened; 3) the specific position of English in Europe must be explicitly acknowledged, in an effort to help propose a new model promoting the coexistence of different languages in Europe; 4) the languages of migrants have considerably changed the linguistic landscape in Europe; they should be more explicitly recognised and supported at European level; 5) existing barriers to the recruitment of teachers from other member states should be removed; teachers should also be encouraged and helped to train abroad in an effort to improve their level of languages; 6) in the area of creating audiovisual materials, subtitling (and not dubbing) should be the default option for organisations operating at a European level; 7) the impact of multilingualism on trade and profitability should be reassessed. (IL/transl.fl)