The Walloon government has adopted its new “Languages Plan”, the aim of which is to improve the training of people and thus increase the employment rate in the south of the country, the regional Minister for Employment and Training, Christie Morreale, who is in charge of the project, announced in a press release on Saturday. A total of 2.75 million euros has been earmarked for the project. The focus will be on national languages.
**New training courses, language immersion grants and a reference centre for language teaching**
In concrete terms, new “language-trades” training courses will be organised in qualification training programmes and in trades for which languages are an asset in finding employment. Forem, the Walloon office for vocational training and employment, will develop new modules each year in a series of professions.
The plan also provides for the continuation of language immersion grants for job seekers and students. For jobseekers, up to 1,750 immersion grants (compared with 300 at present) may be awarded, with the amount increased. The conditions for accessing these grants will be relaxed as they will be accessible regardless of the level of study (until now, a bachelor’s degree was required). For the latter, approximately 200 long scholarships (of one or two terms) and 1,600 short scholarships (of two to four weeks) in language schools in Belgium, Europe or in companies will be awarded annually. Priority access will be given to young people enrolled in or leaving a training or qualification course and/or who qualify for a study allowance, as well as to young people who have limited language learning opportunities in their curriculum.
The project also plans to create a reference centre for language teaching in Wallonia: the Forem Language Centre, in partnership with UCLouvain.
**Free access to Wallangues**
The use of the free Wallangues platform, launched in 2012 to encourage language learning in Wallonia, will also be optimised with, in particular, “more attractive” beginner modules and the extension of the target audience to young people aged 15 and over.
Through a series of promotional actions, the plan will also seek to combat the shortage of trainers and teachers.
Finally, the plan will benefit from a broad communication campaign “to raise awareness of the added value of language skills for employment”.
“I am very pleased with the implementation of this new ‘Language Plan’ which consists largely of increasing the language skills, in particular Dutch, of Walloons and, consequently, promoting the rate of socio-professional integration. This is a truly ambitious policy that improves the chances of job seekers getting a job that matches their expectations,” commented Walloon Minister-President Elio Di Rupo, quoted in the press release.
Some measures I think would work long term and be way more efficient than those proposed;
Dutch/German movies quotas on television
Obligatory Dutch/German/English courses at school
Reform the language laws for gemeentelijke/communales communications to be obligatorily accompanied by Dutch and/or German translations.
In brief, to make these languages part of the daily life in Wallonia. Though, these are changes to be made at the French Community/FW-B level (they are a bunch of tards, linguistically), not the Walloon Region.
These measures are mostly aimed at jobseekers or students in higher education and still don’t intend to make Dutch an obligatory subject for students in general and mostly younger ones where the learning of languages is the easiest and the most natural or to give more incentives to (attract) language teachers in elementary and high schools.
Wake me up when dutch finally becomes obligatory in school.
Yea. A “language plan”. Hooray. Yahoo. That will make things work. Oh yes, believe me.
L’attrait d’une langue pour les jeunes est avant tout son impact culturel.
Et je suis désolé de vous l’apprendre mais la culture flamande a zero attrait pour un jeune francophone.
La connaissance de la culture flamande en wallonie : Urbanus, Samson en Geert, et peut-être Emile Verhaeren.
Rien qui donnerais envie a un jeune d’apprendre la langue.
L’anglais, l’espagnol, le coréen, voila les langue que les jeunes ont envie d’appprendre actuellement.
C’est dommage mais c’est vrai.
Les écoles flamandes à Bruxelles sont les seules qui parviennent a des bon résultats pour les jeunes francophones, mais c’est limité et rien d’équivalent en Wallonie.
Not even 3 million for this? That is like 50 teachers for 1 year…
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The Walloon government has adopted its new “Languages Plan”, the aim of which is to improve the training of people and thus increase the employment rate in the south of the country, the regional Minister for Employment and Training, Christie Morreale, who is in charge of the project, announced in a press release on Saturday. A total of 2.75 million euros has been earmarked for the project. The focus will be on national languages.
**New training courses, language immersion grants and a reference centre for language teaching**
In concrete terms, new “language-trades” training courses will be organised in qualification training programmes and in trades for which languages are an asset in finding employment. Forem, the Walloon office for vocational training and employment, will develop new modules each year in a series of professions.
The plan also provides for the continuation of language immersion grants for job seekers and students. For jobseekers, up to 1,750 immersion grants (compared with 300 at present) may be awarded, with the amount increased. The conditions for accessing these grants will be relaxed as they will be accessible regardless of the level of study (until now, a bachelor’s degree was required). For the latter, approximately 200 long scholarships (of one or two terms) and 1,600 short scholarships (of two to four weeks) in language schools in Belgium, Europe or in companies will be awarded annually. Priority access will be given to young people enrolled in or leaving a training or qualification course and/or who qualify for a study allowance, as well as to young people who have limited language learning opportunities in their curriculum.
The project also plans to create a reference centre for language teaching in Wallonia: the Forem Language Centre, in partnership with UCLouvain.
**Free access to Wallangues**
The use of the free Wallangues platform, launched in 2012 to encourage language learning in Wallonia, will also be optimised with, in particular, “more attractive” beginner modules and the extension of the target audience to young people aged 15 and over.
Through a series of promotional actions, the plan will also seek to combat the shortage of trainers and teachers.
Finally, the plan will benefit from a broad communication campaign “to raise awareness of the added value of language skills for employment”.
“I am very pleased with the implementation of this new ‘Language Plan’ which consists largely of increasing the language skills, in particular Dutch, of Walloons and, consequently, promoting the rate of socio-professional integration. This is a truly ambitious policy that improves the chances of job seekers getting a job that matches their expectations,” commented Walloon Minister-President Elio Di Rupo, quoted in the press release.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
Some measures I think would work long term and be way more efficient than those proposed;
Dutch/German movies quotas on television
Obligatory Dutch/German/English courses at school
Reform the language laws for gemeentelijke/communales communications to be obligatorily accompanied by Dutch and/or German translations.
In brief, to make these languages part of the daily life in Wallonia. Though, these are changes to be made at the French Community/FW-B level (they are a bunch of tards, linguistically), not the Walloon Region.
These measures are mostly aimed at jobseekers or students in higher education and still don’t intend to make Dutch an obligatory subject for students in general and mostly younger ones where the learning of languages is the easiest and the most natural or to give more incentives to (attract) language teachers in elementary and high schools.
Wake me up when dutch finally becomes obligatory in school.
Yea. A “language plan”. Hooray. Yahoo. That will make things work. Oh yes, believe me.
L’attrait d’une langue pour les jeunes est avant tout son impact culturel.
Et je suis désolé de vous l’apprendre mais la culture flamande a zero attrait pour un jeune francophone.
La connaissance de la culture flamande en wallonie : Urbanus, Samson en Geert, et peut-être Emile Verhaeren.
Rien qui donnerais envie a un jeune d’apprendre la langue.
L’anglais, l’espagnol, le coréen, voila les langue que les jeunes ont envie d’appprendre actuellement.
C’est dommage mais c’est vrai.
Les écoles flamandes à Bruxelles sont les seules qui parviennent a des bon résultats pour les jeunes francophones, mais c’est limité et rien d’équivalent en Wallonie.
Not even 3 million for this? That is like 50 teachers for 1 year…