Taster session promoting English
Taster session promoting Luxembourgish

Taster session promoting English

It is well known that Spaniards are somewhat reluctant to speak languages other than their own. Very often, they feel embarrassed and even afraid to speak in a foreign language, as they fear making mistakes or having the wrong pronunciation or intonation. That is why, for our main event, we intended to attract as many people as possible.

The message was crystal clear: learning languages is not as difficult as it seems. It is fun, it is interesting, and it is nowadays essential if we want to have a fluent and warm relationship with our fellow European citizens. For such a purpose, it was obvious that we needed to pick up a widely spoken language. That is the reason why we chose English as the language to be promoted.

In order to guarantee an easy access to the event, we hired a room in the centrally located Herencia Rioja Hotel. Different corners or areas were created in the room by means of a carefully planned decoration: the UK corner was the main one, but Irish, American, Canadian and Australian corners were also created in order to provide the attendees with an overview of the Anglo-Saxon culture in general. Up to six different PowerPoint presentations were displayed, each of them showing cultural, social, historical and linguistic aspects related to a different English-speaking country.

The event took place on 6 April 2006. More than 250 people attended the session between 17.00 and 20.00, including high representatives of the Regional Government and the Education Department.  Several newspapers and TV channels reported about the event, which was great promotion for the project and language learning in general. As we wanted to make it as relaxed and enjoyable as possible, we simply encouraged people to walk around the room, look at the displayed materials (booklets, brochures, photographs, stickers, posters, and so on) and taste the food and drink provided (typical English tea, fruit juice, coffee, pastries, cakes and sandwiches of various kinds) at their own pace.

More than twenty English teachers were there, encouraging the attendees to use English, and helping them with the language. One project booklet was given to each of the attendees on their arrival, and we were deeply satisfied to see that it turned out to be a most valuable tool for them. It certainly helped them learn some basic words and structures pretty fast, which, together with the teachers’ support, allowed them to communicate in English all throughout the session. Overall, we think the session was a great success, as some feedback from the attendees comes to show: “I’m definitely going to enrol on an English course next year”; “My kids are delighted. They say they want to go to England on holiday!”; “When is the next event? We don’t want to miss it!”.

It was also a really nice surprise for one of the Spanish coordinators to meet up to three different people who had attended the event on a flight to London. One of them said:  “I was so impressed by your event that I decided to visit the UK at the earliest opportunity, so here I am, on my way to London!”. For us, these are the best reward we could possibly get.

Back to top

Taster session promoting Luxembourgish

The second session was celebrated on the 22nd March 2007, at the cozy and picturesque “Bodega de Santiago Restaurant”, in the nearby village of Villamediana. For this event, Spain decided to promote Luxembourgish. Several reasons come to explain such a choice.

To start with, Luxembourg and the region of Rioja aren’t very different in terms of extension and population. Luxembourg is one of the smallest countries in Europe and La Rioja is one of the smallest regions in Spain.  Besides, they are both well known world-wide thanks to their wine cellars and their wine production. In fact, in both regions, the winemaking process is an ancient tradition locals are proud of and willing to protect. However, and despite these similarities, there is one thing that turns Luxembourg and La Rioja into perfect examples of two opposite phenomena: Whereas in Luxembourg almost every citizen will speak one – if not more - of the country’s three official languages (French, German and Luxembourgish), as well as English, or even Italian or Portuguese, in La Rioja very few people can speak a second language with a certain degree of fluency. And that is precisely the reason why Spain decided to promote Luxembourg and Luxembourgish.

Why not use the Luxembourgish example to make riojanos aware that - it doesn’t matter where you live or where you come from - speaking languages is both possible and necessary?! And what is more, why not make them understand that language learning is also an enriching and enjoyable experience?

To achieve this objective, we decided to divide our session into two well-defined parts. In the first part,  we tried to provide the attendees – 44 people of all ages and backgrounds – with basic information about the country itself, its history, its culture and, of course, its society. Two PowerPoint presentations were displayed for that purpose. Then, we focused on the language. In the first place, a quiz about Luxembourgish was done. The idea was to show our potential learners how little we all know about Luxembourg’s linguistic background and raise everyone’s curiosity, which we definitely managed to do. A third PowerPoint presentation was also prepared in order to present the attendees with some basic vocabulary and structures related to food and drink and food-related situations. As a follow-up activity, a card game was played. The game consisted of matching the words and expressions which had been previously introduced in the PowerPoint presentation with the corresponding pictures.

Of course, everyone took part in a most enthusiastic manner. At this point, the project booklets, which had been given out at the start of the session - together with name tags, the quiz, an information sheet about Luxembourgish, a picture of the project logo and stickers with the Luxembourgish flag - became a very useful tool.

It was only after this that we moved onto the second part of the session: the dinner itself. It was time to put the words and expressions we had learned into practise! There’s no need to say that, for such an occasion, typical Luxemburgish dishes were chosen. Each participant was given a menu, which was written in four different languages: Luxembourgish, German, French and Spanish and of course, everybody was encouraged to use Luxembourgish throughout the meal. In between dishes, other language activities were done. This time, however, the activities were focused on French and German, the other two official languages in Luxembourg. In conclusion, by the end of the session, everyone had had the opportunity to speak in three different languages, realising that learning languages is not that difficult, and what is even better, it is good fun!