Quality education and language competences for 21st century society: traditions, challenges and visions

This somewhat belated blog entry is the report of the 20-21 March 2014 Council of Europe conference held at the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) in Graz. EPA was represented by Vice Secretary Arja Krauchenberg and our Ambassador, Johannes Theiner. The event was organised by Austria, holding the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers.

The importance of the event was highlighted by the fact that it was also attended and addressed by Pierre Mairesse, the Director General of DG Education, Culture and Media of the European Union. All high level representatives strengthened the importance of language learning in a globalised world.
Thethe conference can be summarised as follows referring to the title of the conference:

• Traditions: teacher centeredness, accumulation of knowledge, learning languages in order to reach native speaker level, monolingualism, monoculturalism, believes in traditional role of teacher, learner and learning
• Challenge: change the focus => learner centeredness, learning how to learn, dealing with diversity, celebrating linguistic diversity, motivation, need for connectedness and belonging, strengthen self-determination, relatedness and autonomy, adapting to constant change
• Visions: making informed choices, develop new skills, build networks – global community of teachers, create spaces for learning and thinking

 The conference was followed by a Professional Network Forum, also attended by EPA.

You can read the detailed report of the event by Arja Krauchenberg on the conference and the forum.