parents meeting waldorfska šola maribor 5.4.2022

Three topics:

Why do we do foreign languages at all? Why do we do two of them? How do we decide which languages?

Story of the 17 camels. In English as well as in German. See how close these two languages are.

Illustrates that the logic, the thinking is common to all languages. Illustrates that one language can reinforce the other as well as the students' first language!

The differences (as well as similarities!) between individual languages depend on geography, history, culture etc.

Reason for foreign language teaching from class 1 in Waldorf Schools (revolutionary at the time): After war in 1919 the need for more openness to other cultures, mindsets and mutual understanding amongst nations. At bottom all peoples are one big family!

Language families. Participants help remember which languages are Romance, Germanic, Slavic. In between we also have unique languages such as Basque, Albanian; Finnish/Estonian, Hungarian; Latvian/Lithuanian are between Germanic and Slavic (sirdeis, srtse, herz, cordis are not all that far apart, which is why we include these European languages under the idea of 'Indo-European').  Greek was not mentioned.

In a way, English could count as a Romance language owing to Latin and French influence!

Why two languages? Two are in a sort of opposition, in a 'straight line' so to speak, could enhance nationalistic feeling about own language; three languages, as in a triangle which opens 'a space'. 

Which languages ? As far apart as possible (Slovenes English and Chinese for example)! The stranger the language the better for the deeper goal of developing the mind.

Examples of different words stemming rom diferent views/approaches for the same concept: God/Bog/Dieu/Allah; bird/ptitsa/oiseau/madár/lintu/paikstis/pajaro.

We feel how wonderfully exhilarating even briefly looking at these different languages!

English as universal second language has a tragic side. English as a language is becoming poorer (cf. loss of plant, bird, insects species in nature). English children find Shakespeare (which is alteady modern English) more and more difficult to understand/ some see it as a 'cool dialect'!

Story "Barking Dogs Don't Bite" (about a 'Slovenian' visiting English friend in London).

Proverbs like "Barking dogs don't bite."

Younger chilren learn languages quickly. The 'ear for languages' starts becoming less sharp from age 9.

Finish up with a word on the troubles in Ukraine and a poem:

Do not stand at my grave and weep. (See Ecosia.org).