Dreaming in Different Languages?
Have you ever dreamt of speaking (and dreaming) in several languages? Okay, maybe just two or three, but at a fairly good level? And would you really have to spend hundreds of hours in the classroom to reach a decent level of communication?
The Magic Ingredient: Other Humans
It’s clear and obvious – with technological advances and a multitude of language apps, often free of charge, these dreams are closer to reality than they might have seemed just a few years ago. These tools are extremely attractive, engaging, and often have an element of competition. They can be so absorbing that some dedicated users have been known to sneak away from a lively party just to earn another digital badge in their chosen language and triumph over their virtual “rivals.” And such users truly believe (and they are right too!) that such tools could bring them closer to their dream level of a chosen foreign language.
Are you sure? With all due respect and admiration for modern technologies – which are becoming increasingly sophisticated, engaging and therefore extremely motivating tools – nothing quite beats a real human being. Even if they are thousands of kilometres away… or just across Europe.
And here comes an extraordinary opportunity to develop language skills within the SEA-EU 2.0 Alliance. As part of Task 4.6 of the project, whose overarching goal is to promote and disseminate multilingualism as the foundation of the ‘university of the future’ that we are all striving for and dreaming of, two tasks are being implemented: Virtual Language Courses (VLCs) and Virtual Tandem Language Exchange (VTLE). Both are available to students and staff of our universities and are completely free of charge. Your only investment? Time. Your return? Priceless!
No More “Maybe Someday” – Start Today!
Firstly, you have a wonderful opportunity to finally ‘take the bull by the horns’, overcome your own procrastination and change the phrase ‘someday, but not yet’ to ‘here and now; this is the right time!’. Secondly, you will meet experienced and highly committed foreign language teachers who will ‘infect’ you with their passion for the language and culture of a given country. This has already happened many times within the VLCs, where, in addition to English courses of various duration (from 10 to even 50 hours) conducted by individual universities of our Alliance, on topics such as Communicative Skills in the International Academic Environment, Business English, Academic Writing, Academic Speaking, Practical Phonetics, it was also possible to learn Polish, French or Portuguese, even from scratch. Incidentally, based on established criteria, it is also possible to obtain an appropriate certificate signed by the truly European University Alliance that is SEA-EU. Since the beginning of the project, over 1,100 people have already participated in our VLCs. All editions are announced in a regular issue of the SEA-EU Newsletter.
Fancy Something More Free-Style?
There is yet another, more free-style form of foreign language learning. This is the so-called language tandems, or VTLE, where you can learn English, as well as French, Spanish, Croatian, Italian, Portuguese, German, Norwegian, Maltese or Polish, i.e. all the languages of our partner universities, depending on the availability of a ‘language buddy’.
You can start at the level informally known as ‘absolute beginner’, or you can continue learning languages you have learnt before at a level of your choice.
And here, literally any of us can chip in. No methodological preparation is required. On the contrary, mutual teaching is based on natural acquisition of the language and simple curiosity about the world. It is the tandem partners who decide how, when and through which communication channel the tandem meetings will take place. Isn’t this a great way to learn another language, get to know another person, and discover another world? Especially before a planned mobility to a partner university; or just a holiday trip abroad to countries that are warm/cold/moderately comfortable in terms of weather, but always extremely fascinating?
To date, over 700 people from our nine coastal universities have taken advantage of this opportunity to co-learn and co-mentor different foreign languages within the VTLE. If you also want to join this group of people who are curious about the world and communicate directly, without using very helpful, but still quite limiting apps.
Visit: https://sea-eu.org/sea-eu-virtual-tandem-language-exchange/.
You never know what else might happen; and how, where and for what your new skills might come in handy.
“Let’s Babel!” – Tongue Twisters, Traditions and… Butterflies?
The experimental workshop ‘Let’s Babel!’ held during the Staff Week expert meeting of the TASK 4.6 team at the University of Malta in mid-June 2025 proved to be equally surprising and extremely inspiring. Some 20 representatives of our Alliance took part. In addition to the nine SEA-EU languages, and English as the Medium of instruction, the participants used Greek, Afrikaans and even British Sign Language! How surprising and inclusive, reaching far beyond the formal boundaries of the European Universities initiative!
The workshop tasks included teaching several other people in a ‘speed tandem’ session how to introduce themselves in their own native language, describe a surprising native custom, teach a tongue twister, or a ‘polite swear word’ in their own language. So far, the Polish ‘Motyla noga!’ (Butterfly’s leg!) has caused quite a stir. Test it on your Polish friends!
Dancing into the Multilingual Future
On top of that, and taking full advantage of the eye-, mind- and imagination-opening AI assistance role, a song ‘Academic Waltz’ was generated for the purpose of that truly and thoroughly international and multilingual UM Staff Week.
Enjoy and share!: https://suno.com/s/keLWqevpNHo8ACsD
So yes, we can all be multilingual. Yes, we can all take advantage of the unique opportunities for language development offered by the SEA-EU 2.0. It’s simple – join us and enjoy the journey!
