European Day of Languages

On September 26 the big hall of the Faculty of Culture of Armenian State Pedagogical University after Khachatur Abovyan was full of school and university students, teachers and educators from Yerevan and different provinces of Armenia. The European Day of Languages was being celebrated. Professor Melanya Astvatsatryan, head of the chair of methodology of teaching foreign languages, began her opening speech with this wise statement by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in four languages: “Wer fremde Sprache nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen. If a man doesn’t know a foreign language is ignorant of his own. Человек, который не знает чужих языков, не знает ничего о своем. Այն մարդը, ով չգիտի օտար լեզու, անտեղյակ է իր մայրենիից:”

Yes, the mobile life of the 21^st century has changed a lot in the whole world. Intercultural relationships, international educational exchanges, the rapid development of high technologies and the existence of the global network of the Internet, the high rate of immigrations in the European countries have changed a lot in our lives. Europe is becoming more and more multilingual. In the result of these changes many schools in Armenia have started to teach a third foreign language. The first steps of our future plurilingual society are made in educational sphere by developing multilingual education.

Professor Melanya Grigoryan’’s speech was followed by the students’ performances in Armenian, Russian, German, French and English. I, myself, presented the multilingual website of “Mkhitar Sebastatsi” Educational Complex.