(And I think to myself…) what a wonderful tool!

January 2012, after kick off in Brussels

Spending some time after dinner with your project colleagues from different countries (socializing!) provides good opportunities for extra cultural exchange. It can even inspire deeper cultural and linguistic discourse.

Sitting the other day with our Tools team in Brussels, talking about languages; one of the funs of different languages speakers is to find out “What’s the Gaelic for… What’s the Lithuanian for…?”  It seems that all linguists try to reach as far back as Adam and Eve, trying to find out the etymology of each word, the common roots. And this is also inspiring, even though the beauty is in diversity, all people in certain circumstances like to think, act, share like brothers and sisters. (That’s a good project team!:)

Listening to an old Scottish tune (was it Auld Lang Syne?, – naturally – most tunes should be Burns’ in Scotland! 🙂 sung by a colleague Iain Gordon was an impulse to reflect about the role, importance and fate of languages. Iain told it was easier for him to learn Gaelic from songs. Sure it was! I learnt most of my pronunciation from English songs, and we use this method with our students. But he is a Scot. And I thought – the clilstore will be an ideal instrument for all the Scots, Lithuanians, Spanish, Danes, Irish, Portuguese and Basque – and other people – scattered all over the world – who didn’t have a chance to learn their Mother tongue; they can listen to a song and see the verse and then click on a word to be translated into a language he is using now.  So – tools4clil is not only for professionals.
Rasa