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.
