EU honours Nordic Language Pilots
The manager of the Nordic Council of Ministers' new language project, the Nordic Language Pilots, has just won the EU's language prize 2009. Project Manager, Lis Madsen, is being honoured by the EU for her great work in promoting understanding of the Nordic languages.
The purpose of the "Nordic Language Pilots" is to educate Nordic school teachers to teach the Nordic languages as neighbouring and foreign languages, so that young people in the Nordic countries can continue to communicate with each other in a Scandinavian language.
- Photographer
- Johannes Jansson/norden.org
Young people in the Nordic countries are finding it harder and harder to understand each others' languages.
A new Nordic project, the Nordic Language Pilots, will change that. The project has made such a good start that it has been noticed all the way down in Brussels.
"The Nordic Language Pilots partly cover the themes of multi-linguists and language diversity, partly early learning of language and, in particular, cross-national co-operation", says Lis Madsen.
The Nordic Council is holding its annual Session in Stockholm from 27-29 October. Here the ministers will present a status report on the Nordic Language Declaration, the objective of which is to promote language understanding between the Nordic countries.
“This is where the Language Pilots come in as the project aims to consider the interests of a hard-pressed area: the reciprocal understanding of the Nordic languages", says Lis Madsen.
In collaboration with the Secretary General of the Foundation for Danish-Norwegian Co-operation, Per Ivar Vaagland, she has worked to develop the Nordic Language Pilots and has, amongst other things, been responsible for the training concept which has turned out to be extremely useful in supplementary training of Nordic school teachers.
Teaching teachers
The project Nordic Language Pilots was set up in the spring of 2007.
The purpose of the project is to educate Nordic school teachers to teach the Nordic languages as neighbouring and foreign languages, so that young people in the Nordic countries can continue to communicate with each other in a Scandinavian language.
The target group for the project is primary and lower secondary school teachers in the Nordic countries who also act as placement advisors for student teachers.
The pilot project came to an end in 2008 but new training courses are being held and new methods and materials being developed in the period 2009-2011.
The project is funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Nordic Culture Fund and the Nordic pearls: The Foundation for Danish-Norwegian Co-operation and the training centres Voksenåsen (Oslo) and Hanaholmen (Helsinki).
59 language pilots have undergone training so far. The next 25 will be trained in November 2009.
Contacts
Hulda Zober Holm
Phone
+45 33 96 03 76
Email
hzh@norden.org
