Brussels, 19/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Year of Languages 2001 was officially inaugurated in Lund, Sweden on 19 February. Launched by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, this initiative urges all Europeans to develop new language skills and to participate in events that will take place in the 45 member States of the Council of Europe. Ms. Warnersson, Swedish Minister of Schools and Training, chaired he inaugural ceremony at which participated Walter Schwimmer, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, and Viviane Reding, European Commissioner responsible for Education and Culture.
The ceremony was followed by a round table on "The challenge of linguistic diversity in Europe" with the participation of Thomas Ostros, Swedish Minister for Education and the President-in-Office of the Education Council. On that occasion, Domenico Lenarduzzi, Deputy Director General of the European Commission, presented a Eurodice study, the information network on education in Europe, on "Foreign Language Teaching n Schools in Europe". This study is mainly focussed on primary and secondary teaching and covers 29 countries that are taking part in the Socrates Programme. It mainly emerges that: 1) in many countries, languages are an integral part of compulsory material from the age of 8 to 10; 2) at primary level, the time granted to language learning is less than that devoted to mathematics; 3) educational programmes play in favour of communication rather than the formal teaching of grammar and vocabulary; 4) in European educational systems, over 40 native languages are used as educational languages, or taught as foreign language; 5) the most taught languages are English, French and German. (the study is available in English and French - the German version is scheduled for May 2001 - from Eurydice in Brussels. Tel.: 02 238 30 11. Fax: 02 230 65 62. E-mail: info@eurodyce.org.