Newsletter (Laurence Wéry, Département de français, ULG)

Why is The Hellonet project will be really useful in the university of Liège?

The situation of Erasmus mobility in the University of Liège (Ulg) is quite interesting. We host a lot of students, most of them from Spain and Italy, and we send some too, but less. Liege seems to be a nice place for student life and some of our faculties seem very attractive for young European people.

What about the specific Greek mobility in ULg? Not good at all. Only 1 student of 235 has decided to spend this academic year in Greece in the University of Patras, Faculty of engineering. And we’re hosting 5 students from Greece.

However, the University of Liège has 24 contracts of Mobility with 12 partners. We’re working with the University of Thessalonica, the University of Macedonia, the Ionian University, the University of Patras, the one of Crete. So where does the problem lie? One of the problems, maybe the most important one, is language. Our students are learning English, Dutch or German in school. They can also learn the Romanian languages like Spanish or Italian easily. Then, when they’ve to make a mobility choice, they choose a country where they will be comfortable with the language. The Greek language makes them afraid. They don’t learn it at school and they think it’s impossible to learn it at the university. This point is not true because our university offers some Greek class from level A2 – B2.

So the Hellonet website (elaborated under the EU Commission and coordinated by the TEI of Thessalonica) is a useful solution to increase the mobility through Greece. The students interested in Greece will discover through Hellonet that the Greek language is not so difficult and they will discover also that the modern Greek culture is very rich. The students from French spoken countries have quite a good antic culture and a good level in Greek ancient history. This is part of their education in school and at home. So they think that they know enough about Greece!

Hellonet arrives at the right time

To make aware the students of the modern Greek culture, Hellonet is of course a useful tool yet we must also consider the international impact of Olympic games and the victory of the Greek national football team in the European football championship. The excellent organisation of the games and their authentic spirit gave an attractive image of Greece. The football team, very popular and warm, without famous international names but with a real spirit to play and win, has contributed also to diffuse a very positive image of the country. Greece is now a country about which everybody talks. European Institutions have to take this opportunity to promote the language too. It’s the good time to do this. That’s why we’re going to promote Hellonet in our university but also in the other Belgian ones. Through the mobility offices that exist in all European universities today, it’s not a very hard task to disseminate the Hellonet website.

Hellonet, a European work coordinated by Thessalonica.

From a personal and a working point of view, this Lingua 2 project made me meet some other language teachers from Spain, Portugal, Greece or Italy. Our experiences and didactic approaches were being discussed and confronted extensively. It was really interesting. We also came to the same conclusions like the poor situation of the Greek language in Europe, and generally the particular position of “modime” languages. My own tasks in this project, above translation and evaluation, made me aware of the richness of the modern Greek language and culture. The last work trip in Thessalonica made me discovered a very rich and warm town. The Macedonian part of country is as beautiful as the south one but unfortunately, less taught in high schools.

As conclusion, I hope that Hellonet is going to help change the general opinion about Greece, its language and culture in the Universities and colleges but we must also help the unfashionable image of the country in high school curricula. Greece is obviously a part of our original cultures but Greece is also a rich and dynamic member of the European union.

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