Tools and Documents

TCA thematic seminar “Democracy speaks in many languages – what is sufficient?” took place in Inari on 12.-15.11.2023 (FI01_0503_THO_2023). The participants of this seminar were teachers, teacher trainers, researchers and administrators working with and interested in language issues and minority languages. The underlying assumption is that a democracy values and thrives from multilingualism. The focus of the seminar was to examine and discuss language learning and practices from the point of view of present language learning paradigms, linguistic resilience, and learner autonomy. The seminar was consisted of presentations, workshops, school visits and informal meetings. In Inari, three different Sámi languages are officially used side by side with Finnish language and the local educational solutions combined with the current language teaching practices were strongly present in the seminar. The participant feedback shows that the inspiring keynotes, peer discussion and networking sparked language awareness and made the participants e.g. rethink the school language policies and organizing the language education of immigrants. The seminar was organized in cooperation with the Self-Government Body of the Sámi and Regional State Administrative Agency for Lapland.

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