DIGI-LINGO: A New Project on Digital Language Teaching and Virtual Exchange

14/09/2022

It has long been recognized that language possesses the power to simultaneously dissolve boundaries and build bridges.

It can transform the stranger into a friend, the unfamiliar culture into a new worldview, the foreign place into a new home. Speak the local language, they say, and you will be at home anywhere in the world. Therefore, since its inception, the European Union has strived to promote language exchange, translation and interpretation between official languages and Member States, as it fosters the feeling of belonging and brings about mutual understanding and social cohesion.

The impact of plurilingualism on a personal level is just as significant - it creates more opportunities for personal and professional development and for economic and social success. Numerous studies have shown that acquiring a new language improves long- and short-term memory, enhances problem-solving skills and improves verbal abilities thus increasing self-belief and self-esteem. Multilingual students scored higher than their monolingual peers on almost all other school subjects as well.

With all of the above in mind, Central Denmark Region (Denmark), Vestland Fylkeskommune (Norway), Kristau Eskola (The Basque Country), Het Gemeenschapsonderwijs (GO!) (Belgium) and European Schoolnet (Belgium/EU), with the support of the ERASMUS + programme, are launching a new project, DIGI-LINGO, which aims to enhance digital language teaching and virtual exchange. This project tries to connect language-learning with the potentials of the digital world. It will explore how the digital learning environments can open new doors to a more effective language acquisition. The project is focused on the upper-secondary level, but should in time be applicable for the broader scale of language education in the whole European Union.

We kick off this project with a webinar on the use and future of virtual and digital language teaching. Together with our speakers, we will discuss about virtual exchanges in language learning and how digital tools can benefit foreign language teaching.

For more information on the programme and to sign up for this event, please visit the dedicated page.