Commission urged to promote language learning

Multilingualism Commissioner Leonard Orban, referring to the High Level Group's report, said: "This report can inspire concrete projects, for instance, research into aspects of multilingualism where there are currently gaps in our knowledge." He cited the promotion of language learning outside formal education settings, encouraging language learning at an older age and the integration of linguistic minorities as areas requiring more attention. 

He added: "My strong belief is that, in order to be effective, language learning should meet at least three criteria. It should be attractive, it should start at an early age, and it should continue during one's whole life." 

An afternoon seminar presented members of the High Level Group with illustrations of how the media can play a role in encouraging people to learn foreign languages. 

Steven Fawkes, former education officer at the BBC, said that the issue was "bigger than education", as language learning goes beyond the classroom to become a key element in other social activities such as sport. He commended the BBC's efforts to promote languages via multilingual programmes on TV, radio and the internet but noted that the issue of fees was always going to come back on the agenda. "Why pay the BBC fee if I don't watch it?" is the recurring question in Britain, he said. 

Claire Doutriaux, a producer at Arte TV, showed an episode of her Karambolage flagship programme, which seeks to entertain viewers with Franco-German cultural subtleties. Like all other programmes at Arte, Karambolage  is bilingual but the difficulty lies in finding a story-telling "drama" that works for both language versions. "We have to juggle with languages, images and translation to make it happen," she explained. 

Jaana Sormunen, executive producer at Finnish broadcasting company YLE, presented an educational and entertainment programme, La Casa en España, which, for the second year running, has attracted numerous viewers in Finland. The TV game saw competitors study Spanish at home for three months and then take speaking exams in the studio and during weekend trips to Spain. The show is part of YLE's language-learning drive, which includes a virtual language school, The Language Gate, in which users can practice languages with interactive exercises using audio, video and text. 

Frédéric Simon, managing editor at EurActiv.com, presented EurActiv's unique approach to EU political news coverage with the launch in 2004 of several partner websites in central and eastern Europe, each covering EU affairs in their own language. The CrossLingual Network, Simon said, aimed to meet demand for independent information on European policies in those countries where the democratic deficit with the EU elites in Brussels is made worse as a result of the language barrier. He then presented the two most recent additions to the network, with the launch of EurActiv France in May and EurActiv Turkey in September. 

Debate centred on the issue of TV subtitling versus dubbing, with one participant pointing out that subtitled programmes do not score high audience levels in France. 

He was contradicted by Jaana Sormunen, who said that viewers in Finland massively protested when the American TV series The Bold and the Beautiful was presented in a dubbed version. Conference moderator Wim De Wielder, from the Dutch-speaking Belgian television channel VRT confirmed this, saying that Flemish viewers are accustomed to subtitling and have found it a useful way to learn English.