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Can language learning foster democratic citizenship?

This was the question that the foreign language teachers were asked during the workshop organised as part of the Horizontal Facility II „Quality Education for All (Quality Ed – Serbia)” Action on 26 September in Belgrade. We teamed up with Romacted project and marked the European Day of Languages by gathering teachers of foreign languages and by trying to decipher how we develop tolerance, understanding, empathy and how do we learn to value cultural diversity by learning different languages and cultures.

The first part of the workshop was led by Ms Sanela Ankic, the trainer from pilot school Veljko Dugosevic in Turija, a small village school that has done wonders with their students and teachers by applying the Reference framework of competences for democratic culture. Sanela shared their experiences and offered practical advice, tools and methodologies on how teachers can foster a democratic culture with children through language and culture learning.

The second part of the workshop was about putting theory into practice – we wanted to learn more about Roma culture and history so we invited Mr Ljuan Koka, linguist and activist, to do a short Romani language lesson. It was so interesting to hear and learn about the history of the language, its dialects, origin and richness that Mr Koka needed to stay longer to answer all the questions. In the end, there was a unanimous agreement – yes, by learning a foreign language, we learn the culture and we learn about necessity to live together as equals in culturally diverse democratic societies.

 

SERBIA: European Day of Languages
Belgrade 30 September 2019
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