Visit to Sakartvelo Technical University

At the end of last year, the Director of the IFL, Dr. Teresė Ringailienė, visited Prof. Vidas Kavaliauskas Centre for Lithuanian Language and Culture at the Technical University of Sakartvelo on an Erasmus+ Teaching Visit.

It is gratifying to see that the Lithuanian language and culture are loved and cherished in a country geographically far away from Lithuania. T. Ringailienė gave lectures on the Lithuanian language to the Centre’s students. Some of them are just beginning to learn Lithuanian, while some of them can already speak and sing Lithuanian very well. The centre also focuses on the Lithuanian culture: a game about Lithuania and traditions attracted much attention and stirred positive emotions. Some students’ knowledge about Lithuania was really surprising. As Christmas was just around the corner, the students decorated the centre with Advent wreaths and spent Christmas Eve together, sharing kalėdaitis, eating traditional Christmas Eve dishes that they prepared themselves and playing the games to guess the future.

Sincere thanks to Marija Sulaberidze, the head of the centre, for her warmth, attention and hospitality, and to all the students for their love for Lithuania and the Lithuanian language.

“Language Cafe” at S. Dariaus and S. Girėno Gymnasium

In mid-December, the director of the IFL, Dr. Teresė Ringailienė, and international students Teresa (from Spain) and Yuzuki and Akito (from Japan) visited S. Darius and S. Girėnas Gymnasium. They told the students about their countries, regions and languages, taught them words, phrases and expressions in their mother tongues, and played language games.

We thank the Gymnasium for the warm and festive welcome. We will continue the “Language Café” initiative, when different languages are learned informally, next year.

Erasmus+ project APATCHE took place at the Catholic Del Sacro Cuore University in Milan

On 23-24 November, the last dissemination event of Erasmus+ project APATCHE took place at the Catholic Del Sacro Cuore University in Milan, Italy, which was attended by the project coordinator VMU IFL professor Mačianskienė, VMU Vice-rector for Communication Vilma Bijeikienė, VMU IFL lecturers Vaida Misevičiūtė, Lina Abraitienė and Daiva Pundziuvienė.

The results of the project were presented to the university community and the participants of the annual conference “Languages at Higher Education: plurilingual approaches and competences enhancement at AI time”, organized by the European Language Council. The research carried out during the project revealed that although the added value of plurilingual methods is unquestionable, a number of language teachers do not know how to apply these methods during their lectures. We hope that the interactive APATCHE course will improve language teachers‘ plurilingual competence and enable them to apply a variety of methods that develop multilingualism and contribute to the implementation of language-sensitive teaching.

The APATCHE project team

IFL lecturers impressions from the training in Florence

On 27 November – 2 December, three lecturers of English at the Institute of Foreign Languages, Daiva Pundziuvienė, Lina Danutė Zutkienė and Almantė Meškauskienė, took part in the training course “Creativity Strategies for Language Teachers: Make it Easy, Make it Real!”, which took place in the Italian city of Florence. The 30 academic hours of the course taught how to create an effective learning environment using various teaching tools. Practical sessions used strategies to develop students’ language skills to suit different learning styles. This field trip was not only a useful professional experience, but also a cultural one.

IFL invites you enjoy the festive season by opening one square in the Advent calendar every day!

Christmas trees in the cities, lights and decorations in shop windows announce that Christmas and the New Year are around the corner. Perhaps no matter which part of the world we are residing in, the festive season is full of smells and flavours. Thus, this year, the Institute of Foreign Languages of Vytautas Magnus University invites you enjoy the festive season by opening one square in the Advent calendar every day and learning about different languages as well as festive recipes of these countries. We wish you a cosy festive period full of light and unique flavours!

Advent calendar

Spanish Language Forum at VMU receives attention from the Spanish Ministry of Education

On Saturday, 2 December, the 7th Spanish Language Forum of Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) will take place. With the growing popularity of Spanish in Lithuania and the increasing demand for Spanish both in universities and schools, the international event, now in its seventh year, aims to bring together Spanish language teachers, lecturers, translators and other professionals to share news, research results, and discuss the latest language teaching methods.

Focus of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Science and Sport

“Spanish is currently facing various challenges in Lithuania, and while we are waiting for major decisions and actions to be taken regarding the teaching of the language in the country’s schools, we can be pleased that an event such as the Spanish Language Forum is being organised for the seventh consecutive year. Every year we have more and more participants, both from Lithuania and from neighbouring countries. This year, we can even count on the support of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. The Ministry’s representative, Joana Lloret, will be presenting professional development opportunities for Spanish language professionals.” – Vigilija Žiūraitė, Spanish lecturer at the Institute of Foreign Languages, is the organiser of the Forum.

Speakers from Spain and the Baltic States

The programme of the 7th Spanish Language Forum will include presentations by professionals from the Baltic States, Spain and Mexico, as well as scientific presentations and practical workshops. José Hernández Ortega, Associate Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, will give a plenary lecture on “Challenges of Teaching in a Changing Society”. The Baltic countries will be represented by Spanish language specialists Jorge López Parreño (Vilnius University), José María Rico Mateos (University of Burgos) and Noa Philippon Salinas (University of Latvia). The forum will also feature a presentation on the influence of Spanish on contemporary art by journalist and cultural manager Liudvikas Jakavičius, who is a native speaker of both Spanish and Lithuanian.He will discuss the situation of the Spanish language in a global context.

The Forum will conclude with a roundtable discussion on the challenges of teaching Spanish as a foreign language in a global context, with the participation of the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Spain in Lithuania, Nieves Blanco Díaz. Spanish is rapidly gaining popularity worldwide and is an official language in 21 countries, with as many as 580 million people fluent in Spanish. Meanwhile, there is a shortage of Spanish language specialists and formal education programmes in Lithuania. In 2017, VMU was the first to draw attention to the training and development of Spanish-speaking professionals by organising the 1st Spanish Language Forum in Kaunas. The Spanish Language Forum is not only for professionals, but also for those who are still thinking about making their career in the language.

The 7th Spanish Language Forum is open to the general public. Anyone can come and listen to presentations in Spanish. The event will take place at the VMU Multifunctional Science and Studies Centre (V. Putvinskio str. 23, Room 310), 9.30-18.00.

Programme of the event

Language tasters at the IFL

The Institute of Foreign Languages invites you to take part in the language tasters. The aim of the event is to introduce lesser-known and lesser-taught languages, which will be presented by both the IFL lecturers and international students. This year we invite you to “taste” Serbian and Croatian, Swahili, Esperanto and Kazakh. The events will be held in English on Teams: https://tinyurl.com/kthev33n

Join the events if you’re interested in languages!

The “Garden of Cultures” 2023

On September 16, the lecturers and students of the Institute of Foreign Languages of VMU participated in the event the “Garden of Cultures” and invited everyone to learn languages and play a game. Kaunas residents and guests had the opportunity to get to know different languages: Arabic, Chinese, Italian, French, German, Esperanto, Danish and Armenian. https://www.facebook.com/154kulturos/posts/840759057837844

European Day of Languages is celebrated at the Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL)

It has become a long-standing tradition that every year on September 26 the European Day of Languages is celebrated at the Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL) at Vytautas Magnus University (VMU). Giving a speech of welcome, the director of IFL, Dr. Teresė Ringailienė invited the audience to think about what languages mean in our lives and why it is worth celebrating this day and learning languages.

A very large group of students, schoolchildren, teachers and lecturers first listened to the presentation of the representative of the company Alliance for Recruitment about the need for languages in the modern labour market. The speaker emphasized that currently English is an inseparable necessity, and all other languages create added value. The knowledge of languages can even acquire a very material expression: the salary of those who know another foreign language at the B2 level and higher is at least 150 euros higher. Currently, in Lithuania there is a very high demand for German and French-speaking employees on the labour market. As it was stated, knowledge of a foreign language is enough for a person to be offered a job, as companies themselves can easily teach other necessary skills.

In the round table discussion “Student Success Stories: Why it was Worth Learning Languages”, VMU students Viktoriia Zakusylo and Fiodor Proscevičius spoke about the great benefits and importance of languages in life. Although the interviewees admitted learning languages differently, they claimed that the benefits of languages are huge: they allow you to get information from original sources, make it easier to travel, encourage communication or allow them to feel free and independent in a foreign country.

The highly anticipated part of the celebration was the orientation game “Mosaic of Languages and Cultures in Kaunas”, in which 8 teams of schoolchildren and 9 teams of students participated. Within a limited time, they had to guess which place related to languages or cultures the clue was talking about, reach it and take a picture. While the orientation game was taking place, pupils from various Kaunas schools listened to international VMU students’ stories about their home countries (Spain, Kazakhstan and Kenya) and learned words and phrases in Spanish, Kazakh and Swahili.

Today marks the 23rd time celebrating the European Day of Languages!

We are glad and proud to be able to learn and enhance the knowledge of various European languages as well as cultures.