Språkdagar på Språkbåten

Ur Lingua #2 2013

In LMS we’re proud of our yearly language conferences. The great lecturers, the networking, the chance to have a dialogue with the publishers and browse through the latest material, the concrete tips and material from the workshops, the chance to interact with and learn from our unions and school authorities. What I particularly love is being surrounded by all these languages, the veritable tower of Babel we have at our conferences. Last summer when I lectured at the FIPLV world conference in Helsinki, I learned that our successful conferences are a point of envy and admiration in other countries. They asked for our secret recipe. Since I didn’t have a clue what the recipe was after six weeks as president I merely smiled and tried to look mysterious. Now I know the recipe and it’s both simple and hard to emulate. Lots and lots of hard work, really skilled and talented people and great cooperation. We have that and more in LMS.

But that’s not all we are proud of. We have our great magazine Lingua, we have many active local associations who do great work, we have lively professional networks both on Facebook and IRL. Last year was a particularly good one for our organization. For the first time in 15 years LMS increased its membership. This year looks equally promising and 2013 is also our 75th anniversary. An occasion we’re celebrating with new statutes, a new name, a new home-page and with big festivities in November.

So should we lean back and bask in our present success? My answer to that is an emphatic no. Swedish students are good at English, but not good enough for our increasingly global work place, and when it comes to the second foreign language our students are both less motivated and less successful than in other European countries. All in all, Swedes are more prone than other Europeans to believe that English suffices. A both sad and dangerous state of affairs considering that we are a small country heavily dependent on our export industry. At the conference for Multilingualism in November, LR’s Lars Hallenberg stated clearly and unequivocally that our educational system doesn’t meet the needs of our industry and our society when it comes to languages.

The situation is no less dire for our members. According to Sydsvenska handelskammaren (the Chamber of Commerce for Southern Sweden) language teachers have lower work satisfaction and lower work security than other teachers, they receive less on the job training and regret their work choice more than any other category of teachers.

In the year I’ve chaired LMS I have heard plenty of stories that strengthen this dismal picture. Teachers who are asked to teach several languages in the same classroom, or to take charge of three different grades at the same time. In the applications for scholarships we receive there are teachers who complain that they haven’t received any professional development since the midnineties. I was particularly discomposed by the joyful thank-you notes from the lucky few who received scholarships for Språkbåten. ‘The best present you could have given me, you have really made my day, thank you, thank you, thank you ...’ All this for a chance for some professional development and networking? Something that every teacher should be able to take for granted?

Here LMS has to take part of the blame. We haven’t done enough. It’s not enough that we arrange conferences, and lectures, that we grant scholarships that come from the membership fees. We need to rally and fight for our common goals. For our students, for our colleagues – indeed for the good of our country, because languages are keys to the rest of the world, vital for our international competitiveness, and also an important key to good overall academic achievements. In Finland every child studies three languages, many of them five. Pasi Sahlberg lifted this as one of the main keys to Finland’s educational success story.

We seem to have favourable winds right now for LMS, both with increased membership, increased state funding and a great many friends and sympathizers. We need to take full advantage of this and during our annual meeting the board will ask for the mandate to put extra focus on overall conditions for language learning and language teaching in Sweden.

We have a great team on the LMS-board, so much competence, energy and creativity. I am sure that we can make a real difference if we channel our resources, focus on what is most important and cooperate with our unions, school authorities and various interest groups

But if this fight is to be successful we all need to pitch in. We need to increase our membership base, we need to strengthen our networks, we need to put pressure on municipalities and on the government. We are here in the best of companies, in the company of language teachers from all over Sweden. Why not start right now? You can talk to your colleagues on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; take this chance to make new acquaintances, to widen your professional network. Exchange e-mail-adresses, hook up on Facebook.

We can probably move mountains if we try hard enough.

We can certainly make our politicians see reason.

Bild: Helensa von Schants

a href="http://tidskrift.nu/artikel.php?Id=8707">Läs mer om Lingua #2 2013

Helena von Schantz

Publicerad: 2013-07-19

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