Each year, on September 26, Europe comes together to celebrate its linguistic diversity through the European Day of Languages. Given that this event touches upon EUNIC Netherlands’ essential values, the cluster has consistently been organising activities for the European Day of Languages each year.
EUNIC Netherlands hereby aims to encourage awareness of European linguistic diversity and stimulate language education.
Speak-Dating Event
The Speak Dating event took place in the Hannie Dankbaarpassage (part of De Hallen) in Amsterdam. This event marked the 20th anniversary of the “big bang” accession: on 1 May 2004, ten countries (and nine official languages) joined the EU.
The focus of the Speak Dating event was on those nine languages (Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak, and Slovene), but in total more than 20 languages were on offer.
Here is a picture of Federico Gobbo, an Esperanto teacher, at last year’s event!
Language classes for high school students
One aspect of EUNIC Netherlands’ activity focuses on stimulating linguistic awareness and education for the young. Using its unique network of native language speakers from all over Europe, EUNIC Netherlands and the European Commission are organising Language Festivals in various cultural centres across the country. These are aimed at first-year high school students and consist of various short language classes. The students are introduced to new European languages, ranging from Spanish and Ukrainian, to Turkish and Czech. The students are thus acquainted with European diversity and the joy of multilingualism in a dynamic and entertaining way.
The Fun Language Classes for 12-year-olds took place in Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Groningen.
To the right is Jesse Wichers Schreur teaching kids the Georgian alphabet, and to the left is a Spanish class taught by Karina Gutiérrez. Both pictures were taken during the morning session at the Alliance Française in Rotterdam.
The students provided us with positive feedback. They found the experience of delving into diverse European languages truly captivating, especially when faced with the challenge of mastering languages vastly different from their mother tongues. Some students even told us that the event inspired them to learn more languages beyond the classroom!