The Institute of Foreign Languages of Vytautas Magnus University (VMU IFL), in cooperation with the Language Teachers’ Association of Lithuania (LTAL), is organising the 7th international scientific conference “Sustainable Multilingualism 2023”, which will take place in Kaunas, Lithuania, on June 9-10. Abstracts are accepted until April 1.

The tradition of sustainable multilingualism at VMU

The international conference “Sustainable Multilingualism 2023” is the seventh conference organised by VMU IFL and LTAL, which aims at bringing together language policy makers, language and plurilingual competence researchers, language teachers, students and anyone interested in discussing and sharing their experiences, insights and perspectives in the key issues of multilingualism.

“The Institute of Foreign Languages is a promoter of the tradition of multilingualism at VMU, contributing to this mission through its direct work, offering and facilitating the learning of more than 30 languages for the university, city and national community. In addition to that, we also fulfil this mission through our international activities, bringing together foreign and Lithuanian scholars to solve common problems. Almost 200 scholars from all over the world come to the conference organised every two years. This includes both established scholars with extensive experience and those who are just starting their careers, such as former or current VMU students,” explains Prof. Dr. Nemira Mačianskienė, the chair of the scientific committee of the conference “Sustainable Multilingualism”.

Quill – Quality in Language learning ( https://quill.pixel-online.org/) has reached its final stage. A „Digital Literacy as a Quality Guarantee in Language Learning“ forum will be held on February 2 in the Visitor Centre of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania.

The Forum participants are language teachers of higher education institutions, language teachers of general education schools and educational policy makers.

The Listiac Closing Seminar is free and will be live-streamed on the Listiac YouTube channel on Thursday 20 January 2022 at 10.00-16.00 CET. Please register via the link above and receive the link to the Closing Seminar via email. The live stream will comprise presentations of the Listiac Project (at 10.10-10.30) and other current research topics in relation to Linguistically Sensitive Teaching and initial teacher education in Europe by five of the local leaders within Listiac (at 10.30-12.15 CET). The Listiac Research Team will present the key finding and other outcomes of the project in the afternoon (at 13.00-14.30 CET). There will also be two invited talks by Professor Emeritus Jim Cummins (University of Toronto) and Policy Officer Oana Felecan (European Commission) commenting on the Listiac project.

You will find the full programme at https://listiac.org/conference/.

HOW TO PERFORM BEST DURING THE STATE EXAM?

Covid-19 pandemics and online teaching. For the whole year lasting pandemics and online teaching has been a challenge for students and their teachers, especially for high school graduates, preparing to take State exams. For most of them online teaching/learning has required extra skills, time, and efforts to adapt and transform to a different style of learning.  Very likely, that without additional support, many of the students wouldn’t have been able to prepare for the State exams properly and present themselves at their very best. 

Developing foreign language communication competences to high school graduates preparing for the State examination.  Language Teachers ‘Association of Lithuania (LKPA) prepared an application for the project that aims to help high school graduates to better prepare for the State examination of a foreign language (English, German or French). The project is being implemented by active members of LKPA – expert teachers of foreign languages working in Lithuanian high schools.   The idea and initiative for this project came from language teaching and teacher-training experts of Public Service Language Centre.

University of Antwerp, 2-3 December 2021

Call for Papers

As a result of migration and internal mobility European countries and cities have become increasingly multicultural and multilingual and host native speakers of hundreds of languages. These people may lack proficiency in the languages of the countries hosting them and therefore must rely on language assistance (i.e., translation and, above all, interpreting) to be able to communicate with authorities and service providers, and have access to social services. Language assistance is not always available, though, and even when it is, its quality is often inadequate. This results in a limited or impossible access to services and, in violation of the principles enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, a de facto discrimination on the ground of language, with consequences that may be very serious, in particular in sensitive areas such as healthcare or justice where people’s health or freedom may be at stake.