Audio file MITN Webinar - Multilingualism in higher education_ Challenges and opportunities.mp4 Transcript 00:00:00 Helena Wall Go ahead. 00:00:02 Dr Ann Peeters Thank you very much. I wanted to start with. I promised a brief introduction into. 00:00:11 Dr Ann Peeters Multilingualism in Belgium because, although we are very small country, our linguistic situation is complicated and that's even an understatement. So in order to for you to understand the context. 00:00:25 Dr Ann Peeters I would like to briefly introduce some facts. So Belgium became an independent country in 1930 so I could back go back to the Middle Ages to themselves and the Franks to explain why Belgium is a multilingual country. 00:00:40 Dr Ann Peeters But I think that would be a bit boring in this context, so I'll jump immediately to the 19th century. 00:00:46 Dr Ann Peeters Three, so 1883 is a rather important date because it was the first time Belgium officially recognised 2 languages, French and Dutch, but we had to wait until the end of the century to see a law on equality. 00:01:06 Dr Ann Peeters Of the languages, then we jump. 00:01:10 Dr Ann Peeters We make another jump. 00:01:11 Dr Ann Peeters Of approximately 60 years in 1960, two 1963. 00:01:18 Dr Ann Peeters The language areas were established in Belgium, so we have full language areas. As you can see. You can also see it in the. 00:01:27 Dr Ann Peeters Map we have the Dutch language area in the north. The French language area in the South. We also have German as an official language that's in the east. The part that's connected. 00:01:38 Dr Ann Peeters That's on the border with Germany. And then we have Brussels, which is geographically located in the Flemish region, but it's actually a bilingual area. So in a country that's approximately as big as a handkerchief we have. 00:01:56 Dr Ann Peeters For official language zones. 00:02:02 Dr Ann Peeters Yes, Helen and the next slide, please. So as if that weren't complicated enough, we realised after in the 70s and 80s that drawing borders. 00:02:16 Dr Ann Peeters Does not necessarily have. As a consequence that people start to speak a different language just because they live on this or that side of the linguistic world, and that led to many problems and misunderstandings, so they it was decided that in 27 municipalities. 00:02:36 Dr Ann Peeters That are close to the border. You can see all these red, little red and blue dots on the map. 00:02:44 Dr Ann Peeters Those are municipalities with language facilities. What does it mean? It means that for some specific activities, such as. 00:02:56 Dr Ann Peeters Elections or administration in general and the administration in schools, public information in train stations and so on. And there is a possibility to use also a different national language, but the criteria and the languages and the areas of interest. 00:03:16 Dr Ann Peeters Are not the same in these municipalities. This leads to a lot of tensions that we can see on the next slide. 00:03:31 Dr Ann Peeters OK, so in the photo in the picture on the left you can see how it should be. So you have you have a bilingual announcements in these municipalities like plus communalities plan at the Shopping Centre Centre but since people. 00:03:52 Dr Ann Peeters Don't agree with. 00:03:52 Dr Ann Peeters All these benefits and then you have the result in the picture on the right is that people start to eliminate the OR to cancel to destroy actually the. 00:04:04 Dr Ann Peeters French translation. This also happens the other way around, where people try to cancel the the the Dutch translation. 00:04:13 Dr Ann Peeters So it it happens on a regular basis every time we organise elections in Belgium, it becomes a topic of national interest, received their invitation letter in which language and where mistakes or so-called mistakes were made. And so the the situation is rather. 00:04:37 Dr Ann Peeters There's a next slide, please. 00:04:40 Dr Ann Peeters OK, in 1993 we decided to make the situation even more complicated. Belgium became has become a federal state with three official regions and three official communities. 00:04:58 Dr Ann Peeters Which are still. 00:05:00 Dr Ann Peeters It's a different thing related to the language area, so those are not the same. If we take a look at the map on the next slide. 00:05:12 Dr Ann Peeters OK, we can see some kind of an overview of the situation, which is a bit complicated. So we have three regions, the Flemish region, the Brussels Capital Region and the balloon region. But the communities don't always coincide with the regions. So the Flemish community is divided. 00:05:33 Dr Ann Peeters Our lives. 00:05:33 Dr Ann Peeters In both the Flemish region but also the Brussels Capital Region, the same goes for the French community. Those those people are spread over the balloon region, but also the Brussels Capital Region and then the German speaking community geographically look is is geographically. 00:05:54 Dr Ann Peeters Located in the balloon region but is a different community with a different parliament and a different government and different ministers. 00:06:01 Dr Ann Peeters I'm not gonna dig into the political structure behind this because we we'd be still sitting here tomorrow morning, I'm afraid, but it. 00:06:12 Dr Ann Peeters Let's say the the linguistic situation with Belgium is rather complicated. Now. Yes, Helen. The next slide, please. This also offers. 00:06:23 Dr Ann Peeters Oh no. I first have to explain the language laws. So in 196263 we also established language laws with significant impact and consequences for education. 00:06:34 Dr Ann Peeters That's where I wanted to to get so. 00:06:38 Dr Ann Peeters It was determined. 00:06:39 Dr Ann Peeters That the language of instruction also had to be the language of the community. 00:06:44 Dr Ann Peeters So basically in the Dutch speaking community, the language of instruction is Dutch and can only be Dutch, foreign languages or or taught in schools. 00:06:54 Dr Ann Peeters Of course, we all have French, English and German as foreign languages, and depending on the programme in high school that you choose, you also have. 00:07:04 Dr Ann Peeters Courses in in German and Spanish proficiency. 00:07:07 Dr Ann Peeters Courses those are. 00:07:09 Dr Ann Peeters In the French speaking community, the yes next slide please. The language of instruction is free. 00:07:16 Dr Ann Peeters Which but there as children have to choose between Dutch or English or German. And this already leads to. 00:07:26 Dr Ann Peeters Different difficulties because it's a bit. 00:07:30 Dr Ann Peeters Forcing people to choose between the plague and cholera if they choose Dutch, then fine, they know one of the official languages in Belgium, but they don't speak English at all, which is required for, let's say, international communication if they choose. 00:07:46 Dr Ann Peeters Which then that's an opportunity. But at the same time, there is one of the national languages they don't even ever get in touch with, and that leads to problems when you're applying for a job in Brussels or a job at the level of the government, because then you need to be bilingual or at least have a very high proficiency level of the other national language. 00:08:09 Dr Ann Peeters In the Brussels Capital Region, students fortunately receive classes in both languages. Language proficiency courses in the German speaking community, the language of instruction logically is German. But when they study as a as foreign languages, French is compulsory. 00:08:28 Dr Ann Peeters And then they choose between English, German and Spanish. Now this is rather complicated, but it also offers a lot of opportunities in terms of. 00:08:41 Dr Ann Peeters Education is the next slide, please. 00:08:48 Dr Ann Peeters OK, this as a consequence, for instance, that I forgot to mention because I thought the next slide would be the benefits already. 00:08:55 Dr Ann Peeters No, the this for instance meant that University of Nova, which is the old one of the most famous universities in, in in Europe, they first until 1968. 00:09:13 Dr Ann Peeters Programmes were offered in French, but love is in the Flemish community, so there were very violent protests. The picture that you see there are students protest protesting against Walloon students attending their university, but especially in Belgium until 1968. 00:09:32 Dr Ann Peeters People who were not very proficient in French, for instance, attended middle school and high school in. 00:09:39 Dr Ann Peeters Much they had not a lot of opportunities to start a university programme. What is funny, though, is however they. 00:09:48 Dr Ann Peeters The students were because the the protests were very violent. I was told they they were. 00:09:56 Dr Ann Peeters Protesting to have the. 00:10:00 Dr Ann Peeters Education offered in their own language, but in the in their slogan balloons go. 00:10:05 Dr Ann Peeters Home there are. 00:10:06 Dr Ann Peeters They're actually translanguaging, so that was. That was interesting. Yes, the next slide please. 00:10:15 Dr Ann Peeters Yes. So of course this is very complicated and. 00:10:24 Dr Ann Peeters In spite of. 00:10:26 Dr Ann Peeters The political discussions and difficulties Belgium and especially Brussels is, say the perfect playground for people who are interested in multilingualism or want to learn languages. 00:10:40 Dr Ann Peeters It has been proven scientifically that, as you all know, that multilingualism, or being multilingual or bilingual, leads to better job opportunities, that it enhances social contacts. Often it helps to to have strong family ties. 00:10:59 Dr Ann Peeters There are cognitive advantages, and there's also. 00:11:04 Dr Ann Peeters Neurological advantages such as the prevention of neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer. Then on the next slide, we also have facts that have not been proven scientifically related to bilinguals and multilinguals. So we have we have all kinds of. 00:11:25 Dr Ann Peeters So yes, on to the next slide please. 00:11:34 Dr Ann Peeters So we tried to come up with solutions because we have a very multilingual environment, also often in in the context of family situation, mixed marriages et cetera. But at the same time we have to face the problem that. 00:11:53 Dr Ann Peeters Multilingual education is not allowed because of the balls of 196263, and that's a bit unfortunate actually because. 00:12:06 Dr Ann Peeters Often we don't have the feeling that this the situation in education and the programmes as how they were taught, they reflect the linguistic situation of Belgium. 00:12:18 Dr Ann Peeters And because bilingual schools, for instance, cannot exist now over the years, people or schools try, academics try to come up with solutions. So one solution is its content and language integrated. 00:12:33 Dr Ann Peeters Learning that is a programme in in flounders, so it means that students don't have. It's not really a bilingual education or a multilingual education, but they have language proficiency courses. They also have specific courses such as mathematics or science or history, that are taught in one specific. 00:12:54 Dr Ann Peeters Language so the school can choose between English, French or German, and the students have pupils have. 00:13:02 Dr Ann Peeters Some courses, general courses in those languages. So approximately 100 schools are involved in the project so far, and the initiative has been after a lot of struggle been recognised by the Ministry of Education now in the. 00:13:22 Dr Ann Peeters Yes, next slide please. 00:13:26 Dr Ann Peeters In the French speaking community, we have a similar initiative in Milan and also longer Tanger called. Those are emerging schools. 00:13:38 Dr Ann Peeters And they're very popular. I think we by now they're over 500 schools and they have a lot of pupils, but there is one big challenge and that is to train the teachers because not every teacher in mathematics or hard science also knows to explain. 00:13:57 Dr Ann Peeters The content of his glasses in perfect French or imperfect in English, it's more or less feasible in Berlin, but not everyone has a very high proficiency level of French in German. 00:14:08 Dr Ann Peeters So then you also need to train all those teachers on Wednesday afternoons when when schools are closed or during weekends or in evenings. So. 00:14:17 Dr Ann Peeters It's very it offers a lot of advantages, but there are also many challenges and organisational difficulties that we have to take into account. The easiest thing of course would be that. 00:14:31 Dr Ann Peeters University students graduating in a French speaking university would be able to teach in a in a French speaking or speaking university, but unfortunately that's not allowed if you don't have the right teacher training from the community where the high school is is located. So it's a bit of an archaic. 00:14:51 Dr Ann Peeters Structure education wise, that doesn't really match matches the need. The needs that we that we have in terms of. 00:15:02 Dr Ann Peeters Learning our young people to communicate in various languages, OK and next slide please. OK, so this was what I just tried to describe was the situation at the level of high schools until a couple of years ago. 00:15:21 Dr Ann Peeters There were serious difficulties for those students who finished high schools such as Cleveland and Middle. There were no programmes at all at university level that could be considered a continuation of this. 00:15:34 Dr Ann Peeters System on top of that, often, since we're in Brussels, we also have many immigrants or people that are here for the for the European Commission and their children, they have many options at high school level to follow because we also have European schools as it's called. 00:15:55 Dr Ann Peeters Where those are multilingual high schools, but they depend directly on the European Commission. 00:16:02 Dr Ann Peeters So then there there is a gap between high school and, let's say, master studies or a career until 10 years ago, those students had to go abroad and and and study abroad because we didn't offer multilingual programmes. 00:16:19 Dr Ann Peeters In the meantime, we have many. 00:16:23 Dr Ann Peeters English taught programmes in in in Flanders. 00:16:28 Dr Ann Peeters But multilingual option was was not available, so we tried to come up with approximately 10 years ago with a plan for the multilingual master in linguistics and literary studies. 00:16:43 Dr Ann Peeters In order to close the gap, but also to explore the possibilities of. 00:16:49 Dr Ann Peeters Trying to attract people from other continents and other countries also order to reflect towards the world's diversity in our programme. 00:17:00 Dr Ann Peeters So now I will first first of all I will try to give you a very brief overview of the structure of the programmes that at least take the big lines. 00:17:09 Dr Ann Peeters And then afterwards I tried to. 00:17:14 Dr Ann Peeters Select three topics that are of interest. I think. I hope when speaking about multilingualism in higher education or multilingual programmes at university level. 00:17:27 Dr Ann Peeters So first I I will try to give you an overview of the situation or describe the topic and then try for my own. 00:17:35 Dr Ann Peeters Experience to see whether or not theory matches. 00:17:42 Dr Ann Peeters And then afterwards, I'll, uh, I think we'll still have time also to have a discussion because I'd be very interested to know also what you think or your point of view on on the matters. So in the multilingual masters, students have choice of different different profiles and. 00:18:00 Dr Ann Peeters Languages we have programme profiles are related to linguistics and literary studies. As such, we also have one profile that's called multilingual migration and communication, and that is more related to applied linguistics and the language industry, multilingual practises and so on. 00:18:21 Dr Ann Peeters This next slide please. 00:18:24 Dr Ann Peeters OK, this is a very complicated slide. It just shows the structure of the programme. Students can choose one language or two languages, then they have to select credits, but the? 00:18:37 Dr Ann Peeters The reason why this overview is rather overwhelming is because students have a lot of options. They can choose one profile, they can choose two profiles, one language, 2 languages. Then in the profile. 00:18:48 Dr Ann Peeters Else all the profiles are multilingual. So say for instance a student has English as his main, his or her main option, but is actually has the French nationality and the student can also choose to follow courses in French, although he or she is not majoring in French. 00:19:07 Dr Ann Peeters Yes, next slide please. 00:19:10 Dr Ann Peeters OK, so which language do we offer? So for the profiles that are linguistics and literary studies, we have Dutch, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. For the profile in multilingual migration, we have those languages, but we also have Arabic, Chinese and Russian. 00:19:30 Dr Ann Peeters That's the next slide, please. 00:19:33 Dr Ann Peeters OK, we have 6 profiles, so I'll briefly. 00:19:38 Dr Ann Peeters Read them so there is intermediately linguistics, literary studies, multilingual mediation and communication, multilingualism, and for language acquisition, and psycho and neurolinguistics. 00:19:54 Dr Ann Peeters This is a bit an overview of our student body, so in the graph on the left you can see the number of students that we welcomed. 00:20:03 Dr Ann Peeters Over the past. 00:20:05 Dr Ann Peeters Six or seven years. So we started with nine students, but then we steadily increased and now we have almost 200. 00:20:14 Dr Ann Peeters 46% of which are EEA students, Belgian students included. That's approximately half of the students. So then we have 30% of non EEA students and also 6% are refugee students because we have a special programme focusing on refugee students so. 00:20:36 Dr Ann Peeters After a lot of efforts in terms of recruitment, we managed to have a balance where 1/3 of the students are Belgian, 1/3 of the students are European students, broadly speaking, and 1/3 of the students are non European. Approximately we have between 30 and 40 different nationalities. 00:20:57 Dr Ann Peeters Every year the nationalities are not the same, so we are it's, I think one of the most diverse programmes we have in the university because students literally come from every, there are only a few countries in the world where that didn't send students yet. 00:21:14 Dr Ann Peeters Uh, so OK, this offers a lot of possibilities because you often in. 00:21:24 Dr Ann Peeters National programmes or cities that are not multilingual in order to develop activities and initiatives in the framework of internationalisation at home, it is necessary to have a lot of Erasmus students or to set up specific projects with partner universities in order to connect. 00:21:45 Dr Ann Peeters Students like so also the case a little bit for Utopia in in these kind of programmes you already have. 00:21:53 Dr Ann Peeters A lot of diversity, so in theory. 00:21:58 Dr Ann Peeters It should be possible to have internationalisation, but also internationalisation at home. If we read the these. 00:22:08 Dr Ann Peeters Definitions, but there are many more definitions to be found at the internationalisation is described by. 00:22:16 Dr Ann Peeters European Parliament, as the international process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose functions and delivery of post secondary education in order to enhance the quality of education and research for all students and staff, and to make a meaningful contribution to society. 00:22:38 Dr Ann Peeters I think in this case and those cases are rare, I think it was easier to write the definition than to know how to implement this, because we all we all agree these are beautiful words, and that's indeed what internationalisation should be. That's what internationalisation is. But then, if we go to the next step. 00:22:57 Dr Ann Peeters Being how do we practically try to implement this, then it becomes far less easy in my experience. 00:23:10 Dr Ann Peeters I tried to come up with for this presentation with six, but I'm sure there are many more initiatives that could work in such a context, but also in context where partner universities, each located in a different country or a different region can collaborate. So I think personally it's very important. 00:23:32 Dr Ann Peeters To invite international guest speakers, you can say yes, but these students already have a different perspective when studying in your university, because what your professors already offer a different perspective. But I think it's. 00:23:47 Dr Ann Peeters Fundamentally important that students have a variety of perspectives, perspectives that relate to their own background, education, cultural, religion, everything. 00:23:57 Dr Ann Peeters And then also perspectives related to the country where they're currently studying, but also perspectives related to different countries as well. 00:24:07 Dr Ann Peeters We can see that our students really appreciate this a lot. This is one of the when we when we do surveys for student feedback, that is one of the things that they. 00:24:18 Dr Ann Peeters That they appreciate the most. 00:24:21 Dr Ann Peeters Then also important might be hiring international staff and I forgot to count. I thought yesterday night, tomorrow morning I have to count how many nationalities we have in our teaching body, but I forgot, but only for the staff that was hired. 00:24:43 Dr Ann Peeters In the framework for this programme, I can tell you I am the only Belgian person and I hired people from Russia, China, Syria, Mexico, Colombia, Vietnam everywhere so that students. 00:24:57 Dr Ann Peeters That the the. 00:24:59 Dr Ann Peeters The diversity that we have in our student body would also be reflected in the staff. I think it's important for students not only to have white male professors when studying in a foreign university, but also see diversity. And I think another important initiative might be the international. 00:25:20 Dr Ann Peeters It can be set up with partner universities as well, but in this in this framework we can we have different assignments that we set up that actually force the students to collaborate. We have many forms of assignments where we say. 00:25:41 Dr Ann Peeters Uh, your groups cannot be Belgian. Students work with Belgian students, and Chinese students work with Chinese students and students from Iran work with other students from Iran. But you have to make. 00:25:52 Dr Ann Peeters A mixed group. 00:25:54 Dr Ann Peeters Now on the next slide, it's a bit of a funny example, but we have an interruption. This is my class or was my in October of 2018, I have one course where that's compulsory for all master students in the whole department. 00:26:14 Dr Ann Peeters Not only in this programme, but also in the programmes of linguistics and literary studies in Dutch, but also translation, interpreting studies journalism, they all have to follow this course. 00:26:26 Dr Ann Peeters So it's quite exciting because the first one of the first things I say is you have to make a group assignment, five people per group, but not more than two people with the same nationality. 00:26:40 Dr Ann Peeters And then I give them a break and I tell them now you can while being here you can start sorting out your. 00:26:47 Dr Ann Peeters Loops and I do nothing. I just sit there. 00:26:50 Dr Ann Peeters Of course it. 00:26:51 Dr Ann Peeters Leads to a lot of frustration, chaos, noise. 00:26:55 Dr Ann Peeters Especially because then as you can see, some people are already sitting down. They chose friends that they met the day before during the welcome event and say, OK, you're from Cuba. I'm from here. So we are a group we can. 00:27:07 Dr Ann Peeters Sit down we have. 00:27:08 Dr Ann Peeters Everything then, of course, after an hour or so, then you have 10 shy Belgian students standing in front of you saying I didn't find a group yet. They were all Belgian and and then they have to start all over again so. 00:27:25 Dr Ann Peeters In the end, they always find a method to make sure and then it works out. So Helena, please, if you could go to the next slide. 00:27:32 Dr Ann Peeters So I thought I terrified all these poor students. But then it was brought to my attention that one of the Belgian students had written something on Facebook on the day. So I that was the 1st and. 00:27:45 Dr Ann Peeters I also think the last time I scrolled through students Facebook profiles but this I wanted to find and this is actually a post from one of the Belgian students show. 00:27:56 Dr Ann Peeters She during her three bachelors years she was almost only in contact with other Flemish students following a Dutch speaking programme and all of a sudden in the masters she was confronted with this diversity. 00:28:08 Dr Ann Peeters But I was very pleased to see, and this is just one example, because other students fortunately told me the same thing. 00:28:17 Dr Ann Peeters Afterwards, that students actually reacted in a very positive way now having to collapse. So the fear that students might choose a different university or students might be scared. Or students might have a follow what? 00:28:33 Dr Ann Peeters I actually don't think it's true. If it's, if they have the right guidance and it's explained to them why it's important. Hey, Helen. 00:28:41 Dr Ann Peeters If you could. 00:28:42 Dr Ann Peeters Please go 2 slides back. Yes back. 00:28:48 Dr Ann Peeters Go back. 00:29:01 Dr Ann Peeters No, it was the one after this one, I think where you had the overview of of 6 activities. 00:29:11 Dr Ann Peeters Perfect. Thank you so much. 00:29:14 Dr Ann Peeters Also, comparative case studies, I think those are that's very useful both in theory classes but also in. 00:29:22 Dr Ann Peeters Assignments where students are explicitly asked to compare to students, for instance saying make a comparative study about poor language learning in all your home countries and compare your results and come up with some kind of conclusion or a plan. Students usually like that. 00:29:43 Dr Ann Peeters Because then they can relate to their own reality and express their own opinion. 00:29:49 Dr Ann Peeters A bit less evident to organise our multilingual assignments. 00:29:54 Dr Ann Peeters Although it's not impossible. 00:29:56 Dr Ann Peeters And you can. 00:29:57 Dr Ann Peeters Give students the option to write in more than one language for one of my courses, students are allowed to read articles, prepare articles for the exam, and write assignments in six different languages. Of course, it depends on how many languages you speak and which which one. 00:30:14 Dr Ann Peeters I'm lucky enough to be able to read all the languages that we offer, at least in the normal programmes, but. 00:30:22 Dr Ann Peeters Many other colleagues tried to combine, for instance French and English or English and German, et cetera, and then final element are extracurricular activities. 00:30:34 Dr Ann Peeters Think are very useful, like such as organising a quiz or an international food festival. Students learn a lot. 00:30:43 Dr Ann Peeters About the diversity in the world, they're often also very proud to present something when, especially during the the food festival. 00:30:52 Dr Ann Peeters After that, they didn't have to eat for approximately a week because they were all so proud of what they cooked at home. 00:31:02 Dr Ann Peeters These, I mean, these extracurricular activities academically are not important as such, but for intercultural competences and communication. Also, students that still have to get to know each other, it can be, I think, beneficial. Yes, Helena. Now if if you. 00:31:23 Dr Ann Peeters Could please move on of three slides? 00:31:27 Dr Ann Peeters Until the one. 00:31:27 Dr Ann Peeters After the picture, yes. 00:31:31 Dr Ann Peeters Sorry for being so chaotic. 00:31:39 Dr Ann Peeters Yes, perfect. Thank you. Another topic I'd like to address is the language policy. So in the first paragraph, you have a citation from University World Press and it's an example of the Netherlands, where even. 00:32:00 Dr Ann Peeters Lawsuits were filed against universities and. 00:32:06 Dr Ann Peeters The Inspectorate for allowing too many. 00:32:11 Dr Ann Peeters Programmes in English and also for abolishing programmes in Dutch. One very famous example was that the University of Amsterdam decided to close the Dutch department because of a lack of interest from students. 00:32:30 Dr Ann Peeters So a lot. 00:32:31 Dr Ann Peeters Of critiques or criticism was raised against English speaking programmes. The same happened in Belgium and and other countries as well. Now our. 00:32:44 Dr Ann Peeters English or multilingual programmes really a threat as such for national. 00:32:52 Dr Ann Peeters Programmes or not, personally, I think if you have a good strategy, it's not necessarily the case. I think a big mistake might be to organise 20 programmes in English at the same time in one university. 00:33:13 Dr Ann Peeters It might be too overwhelming also for staff, so I think a gradual process is important. I think also multilingual is important and let's not just focus on English, although English is a world language is a very beautiful language, but there are also many other languages in Europe in the world. So. 00:33:33 Dr Ann Peeters Perhaps a good idea might be to focus more on multilingualism and not just English speaking programmes, whereas in multilingual programmes you can also. 00:33:42 Dr Ann Peeters So dedicate the necessary attention to the the the national language. And I think in terms of recruitment also a lot, a lot of things can be determined. 00:33:54 Dr Ann Peeters For instance, I I remember at University of Delft, the Technical University of Delft in in the Netherlands, they had a programme in technical engineering. 00:34:03 Dr Ann Peeters Studies and the programme was very international, but all the foreign students, without not even one exception, were all Chinese students. Then you don't have an international programme, but then you have a a programme. 00:34:19 Dr Ann Peeters For Chinese foreign students, so I think in terms of recruitment a. 00:34:25 Dr Ann Peeters Lot of things can be done, it's it's a huge effort, but to make sure that you have diversity in your student body. 00:34:33 Dr Ann Peeters And I also think in terms of professional opportunities, it is still very important to have programmes in English also to have programmes in different languages. 00:34:44 Dr Ann Peeters Because as I always often try to explain to my students, when they complain that they have to be in in a group with someone from a different country that already didn't reply to two emails, for instance, is that at least in Belgium, it's. 00:35:01 Dr Ann Peeters Difficult, if not important, to find a job where you are not in contact with people that speak a different language or people that have a different culture or come from a foreign country. 00:35:14 Dr Ann Peeters Also, the role of university language policy, I think is extremely important. If the university decides to. 00:35:25 Dr Ann Peeters Organise or create new programmes in English. I think there should be the necessary support for teachers as well, because it's not always obvious. 00:35:35 Dr Ann Peeters And and I don't want to be disrespectful, but people who are close to retirement, who have taught the same courses in the same language for 40 years, who perhaps don't even have a degree in English, and then all. 00:35:47 Dr Ann Peeters Of a sudden. 00:35:47 Dr Ann Peeters You go like ah, hello, by the way, next year you have to teach a course in English. That of course leads to. 00:35:55 Dr Ann Peeters Frustration and also stress and a huge workload. So I think universities who do decide to have these programmes also should have the necessary. 00:36:07 Dr Ann Peeters Mode not only for teachers and staff, because then you also have the administration, the secretary's office, that have to help these students, but also for the students themselves. 00:36:18 Dr Ann Peeters So in the case, let's say in this case, a Belgian student wants to enrol in an English speaking, he or she should have the necessary support. 00:36:27 Dr Ann Peeters UM, in terms of language proficiency, is next slide please. 00:36:54 Dr Ann Peeters Helena, do you read me? 00:37:02 Dr Ann Peeters Does anyone still hear me? 00:37:04 Prof Jo Angouri Yeah, yeah. No, it's not. You probably. Don't worry, I think. 00:37:08 Dr Ann Peeters Let's just wait a couple of seconds. It's fine. I I I was afraid I froze again. 00:37:12 Prof Jo Angouri No, no, Helena. 00:37:26 Helena Wall Is that better? 00:37:28 Prof Jo Angouri Ah, we can hear you, but same slide still. 00:37:32 Dr Ann Peeters We lost you. 00:37:33 Helena Wall Indeed, allow me to just stop sharing and try again. 00:37:39 Dr Ann Peeters We can still see the the shared presentation. 00:37:54 Helena Wall Is this the correct slide now? 00:38:00 Dr Ann Peeters Well, I feel embarrassed to say, but since I don't know which was the previous, I didn't. I don't know them by heart, but I. 00:38:06 Dr Ann Peeters Think yes. Yes, yes, yes. 00:38:08 Dr Ann Peeters Because I also think this is the last slide. Yes, I decided to finish the press the webinar with. 00:38:19 Dr Ann Peeters The biggest and most difficult challenge, which is the socioeconomic background of students, so. 00:38:28 Dr Ann Peeters I'm afraid this is not something that universities can solve alone, because it's very much related to global economic challenges and dynamics. 00:38:39 Dr Ann Peeters In all the continents we course we we talk about the rights. Everybody's right to be educated. Then we see in these kind of programmes we see big issue is that most of the students who are interested in these programmes also have perhaps the. 00:38:58 Dr Ann Peeters To start and to be uh admitted don't have the means to pay the tuition fee. And that's a huge problem because the last thing you would like everybody would like, I hope, is that you have a programme that is only for the rich and the privileged who can pay thousands of euros. 00:39:17 Dr Ann Peeters And other people are just left behind for the only reason that they don't have enough. 00:39:25 Dr Ann Peeters Economic means to pay the enrollment, etcetera. There are some solutions we could. 00:39:34 Dr Ann Peeters The multilingual master programme we decided to ask the minimum of tuition fees it brings us into difficulties in terms of staff because an easy solution would be to to raise the tuition fees and hire more staff. 00:39:53 Dr Ann Peeters But no one felt actually comfortable because once you get in touch with these students following the programme and you see how they're struggling and that even their grandparents had to take a loan to pay for their flight tickets, then all of a sudden you don't feel comfortable when confronted to the idea that we could still ask more money. 00:40:13 Dr Ann Peeters And even cause more stress for those people. So we have the minimum that we have to that Belgium as a country asks us to. 00:40:23 Dr Ann Peeters And to have then we also try to set up a scholarship programme successfully, so approximately you have 7 scholarships year plus other like the priority countries, scholarships, et cetera. We try to offer student jobs offered by the programme. So for instance, a colleague organises. 00:40:44 Dr Ann Peeters Seminar for webinar unfortunately is not possible with one, so they organise a seminar or conference or they have things that have to be described, transcribed, et cetera. We try to offer our students a student job, an official student job. 00:41:01 Dr Ann Peeters And they also set up the student refugee programme. 00:41:05 Dr Ann Peeters I think that was in 2014. 00:41:09 Dr Ann Peeters No 15 because in 2014. 00:41:14 Dr Ann Peeters In the programme, approximately 30 refugees from Syria arrived. It was a tragedy because no one knew how to deal with it. 00:41:25 Dr Ann Peeters Everybody was willing to help, but the university itself was a bit overwhelmed by the situation, so there was nothing available and programme directors had to try to cope as best as good as possible, so that was not an easy year. But in 2015, since unfortunately. 00:41:45 Dr Ann Peeters The war in Syria didn't stop, and also we realised that we will always have wars in the world, unfortunately, and refugees. We started a student refugee programme in collaboration with the International Office. 00:42:00 Dr Ann Peeters Where we managed to offer all refugee students a tuition fee waiver so they only pay €120.00 a year. 00:42:10 Dr Ann Peeters Which is good. We are fortunately our Belgian and also other international students, there were immediately willing to help. So we set up a body programme in order for every Syrian student to have a body in the programme that could help them with administration or practical matters. 00:42:31 Dr Ann Peeters Then we offered extra language proficiency courses because we noticed that students who. 00:42:36 Dr Ann Peeters We finally managed to to reach Brussels often for the past two or three years, had no courses in the university because all the professors were dead or gone, and then we also have, in collaboration with an organisation in Brussels, we also offer psychological support, if needed, is not necessary. 00:42:57 Dr Ann Peeters If the student ask for. 00:42:59 Dr Ann Peeters Help. Then we can we can. 00:43:01 Dr Ann Peeters Refer them to specialised centre. 00:43:06 Dr Ann Peeters OK, I'm very sorry. I hoped to finish around 6:40 to have more time for questions and discussions. I hope no one will immediately run away. 00:43:17 Dr Ann Peeters I want to thank you for very much for your attention and I'd be happy to discuss things or to answer questions. 00:43:28 Prof Jo Angouri Thank you, Ann. That's 00:43:29 Helena Wall Thank you very much. 00:43:31 Prof Jo Angouri That's that's fascinating. And, uh, don't don't worry, uh, we always have a bit longer than, uh, sort of 6. 00:43:39 Prof Jo Angouri So hopefully we can benefit from your generosity of time and also colleagues who are here. We'll stop the recording for the discussion and we can have. 00:43:51 Prof Jo Angouri Some questions. It's absolutely fascinating. Sort of jigsaw of issues that you've touched upon. 00:44:00 Dr Ann Peeters Thank you. And first of all, I would like to thank Helena for her precious support. Without without her, the presentation wouldn't happen so.