On 24 September 2021 European Language Day was celebrated in Vilnius. This year European Day of Languages inviting THINK4JOBS project to join in – VU students will test high school students‘ CT skills in the European Language Maze BATTLE OF BRAINS
European Language Maze 2021. Public Service Language Centre in partnership with the Directorate-General for Translation of the Council of Europe organized an online final of the Battle of Brains “European Language Maze 2021“ run by a professional master of Brain Battles Artūras Vyšniauskas with the participation of 10 teams of sixteen-year-old students from 10 different towns of Lithuania. These 10 teams of sixteen-year-olds without any doubt were the smartest and the brightest that heated the battle for the grand prix of the contest. The winners – the high school of Kaunas Health Sciences teenagers’ team – have been awarded a trip to the European Parliament by the European Parliament member Andrius Kubilius.
This year THINK4JOBS project Critical Thinking for Successful Jobs -Think4Jobs has joined the European Language Maze BATTLE OF BRAINS – Vilnius University students will analyse the YouTube recording how 10 teams of high school students from all over Lithuania will be discussing, looking for keys and solving dilemmas in the online Battle of Brains, analysing the players‘ open-mindedness, analyticity, inquisitiveness, self-confidence and cognitive maturity, as well as their interpretation, truth-seeking and other CT skills while they will be trying to find the answers to the Battle of Brains‘ questions.
European Day of Languages is a chain of events. Traditionally, since 2001 when it was proclaimed by the Council of Europe, 26th September has been celebrated as The European Day of Languages. It is the day when all Europeans remember how multilingual Europe is and aim to promote multilingualism as one of the major values and uniqueness of the European Union, nourish tolerance among cultures and encourage learning languages at school, university and lifelong. Every year in Lithuania a chain of events take place in different venues in the city: Opening of the Exhibition of Children’s Illustrations of European Songs was opened at the Visitors Centre of the Lithuanian Parliament, where the authors of the best works were awarded by the speaker of the Parliament. Also, the awards were handed in to the best translators of the European songs’ lyrics into Lithuanian language.
Another exciting experience will be online Workshops of Languages where children and adults were invited “on a date” with less widely used languages. This year the participants were “dating“ with Greek, Hungarian, Estonian, English, French, Finnish and Japanese languages. The Workshops of Languages were be run online by foreign diplomatic missions residing in Lithuania.
Public Service Language Centre in partnership with the Directorate-General for Translation of the Council of Europe and Association of Lithuanian Language Teachers have been organizing the events of the European Day of Languages since 2009. Every year students from HEI volunteer in organizing various events on the European Day of Languages and help encourage learning languages, especially less widely used ones.
We wish all the teachers of languages and their students never to stop learning languages that help us discover new horizons and cultures, meet new people and make friends for life. Never stop learning!
by Audronė Auškelienė direktore@vikc.lt , Public Service Language Centre, Lithuania, 2021