2012 EU-China Conference on Multilingualism held at BFSU

2012 EU-China Conference on Multilingualism was held at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) on Dec. 1. More than 200 experts and scholars home and abroad attended the meeting.

Mr. Hao Ping, vice Minister of Education of China and Ms. Androulla Vassiliou, European Union Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth made speeches at the opening ceremony. Prof. Han Zhen, President of BFSU made a welcome speech.

In his speech, Hao Ping said, “Educational exchanges and cooperation is one of the most active areas of the China-EU people-to-people exchanges, and China-EU cooperation on language teaching is an important part of the educational exchange”. Up to now, more than 30,000 European students have studied in China through non-governmental channels.

He also mentioned that the Chinese Ministry of Education and the European Commission agree that linguistic diversity plays an important role in promoting cross-cultural exchanges and enhancing mutual understanding between the people of China and the EU countries. The China-EU Conference on Multilingualism, with linguistic diversity as its main subject, will certainly bring the China-EU people-to-people exchanges to a new height.

Prof. Han Zhen made a brief introduction to BFSU. He said that BFSU is now teaching all the 23 official languages of the EU, and has launched “BFSU Teaching and Research Consortium for EU Language and Cultures”. These have made great contributions of the development of China-EU relationship.

During the parallel panels, the attendants made discussion over different topics, such as “Language Learning and Teaching: Strategies and Approaches”, “Leaning Mobility and Cross-Cultural Competence”,“Multilingual Education and Cultural Diversity” and “Mutual Promotion of Chinese in Europe and of EU Official Languages in China”