In light of the upcoming 7 June referendum on the right to vote for foreign residents in Luxembourg, the Association in Support of Immigrant Workers (ASTI) has announced a number of initiatives that promote the learning of the Luxembourgish language for foreigners.
A common and frequent excuse for those against the foreign vote is that foreigners living in Luxembourg do not speak the country’s native language. However, it is not enough to merely call for more effort from these foreign residents – concrete projects and initiatives that meet the needs of those wishing to learn and practice the language, must be implemented and made available.
ASTI has developed many projects, which go beyond just normal language classes. At the Kannernascht Open Doors Social Home, they have implemented a fun and systematic learning of Luxembourgish, by KONLAB, developed by Swiss teacher, Zvi Penner. This targets children in cycles 1 and 2, and primary school teachers have observed the progress that children undergoing the extra-curricular learning have achieved, despite being from socially disadvantaged foreign families. ASTI offers the programme free of charge to formal and informal educational bodies.
Another initiative, incentivising the learning of the Luxembourgish language is the concept of ‘practising with a coach’. Those frequenting the intermediate language course, can practise with a volunteer, to apply what hey have learned.
Additionally, ASTI proposes a conversation table, enabling around fifteen people, who have recently passed A1 level Luxembourgish, to practise twice a week in an informal setting. A team of eight Luxembourg national volunteers also participate, which aims at fostering links between local citizens and foreigners, and for the latter to overcome their fear and apprehension of expressing themselves in Luxembourgish.
To facilitate communication within a multilingual society, ASTI also disposes of a direct oral translation service. The idea being, that when organising parents’ meetings, conferences, or town meetings in Luxembourgish, translation would be available in various other languages. This would enable Luxembourgish to be used as lingua franca at such events, while also allowing those with less or no grasp of the language to follow the comments via the translation.
