As a guest on the show “Matinalii”, broadcast by TVR Moldova, Associate Professor, Dr. Svetlana CATERENCIUC, Head of the Department of Foreign Languages, offered more details about the Foreign Languages Week, organized at the Technical University of Moldova on March 22-26.
It is an event that celebrates and promotes linguistic diversity, lifelong language learning, through which we aim to draw the attention of academia to the importance of studying foreign languages, by learning or manifesting knowledge in a language through a series of activities, to which both students and teachers are invited to participate, said Ms. Svetlana CATERENCIUC, mentioning the contents of the schedule for the Foreign Language Week:
- student scientific communication within all faculties of the University;
- organization of round tables with the title “Symbolism of Romanian traditions”, “German language in the engineering environment”,
- organization of contests, including:
- poster contest, with the topic “The evolution of the specialty over time”;
- contest of design models and projects, with a description in a foreign language;
- the contest of the terminological sheet;
- the contest “Engineers create the Universe”, the elaboration and directing of a film or a promotional video, with the presentation of the specialty in a foreign language.
Referring to the opportunities enjoyed by students who know several foreign languages, Ms Caterenciuc specified that more and more companies with foreign assets are present on the market of the Republic of Moldova, or local ones are expanding their activity to an international level, consequently, more employees who speak at least one foreign language are needed. Thus, knowledge of a foreign language will exponentially increase career opportunities.
Today, in the process of hiring it is often absolutely necessary to know at least one foreign language, especially since students want to evolve hierarchically, and avoid limiting themselves to novice positions. Moreover, many students are employed during their studies. Information technology companies, such as Pentalog, require knowledge of English and French. In the field of transport, one of the requirements is knowledge of English or German. Companies in the food industry focus on knowledge of French and English, and German companies operating in the Republic of Moldova obviously opt for German.
Knowledge of foreign languages is also the backbone for the implementation of the UTM Institutional Internationalization Strategy. In order to internationalize scientific research and open the University to the international environment, bilateral cooperation agreements are concluded with various universities. Priority is also given to student mobility within the Erasmus+ program, which also requires knowledge of a foreign language. UTM students, for example, have the opportunity to carry out mobility in EU countries with which UTM has ongoing agreements. Thus, 13 students benefited from mobility in various universities in Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Romania, France and Italy. The CEEPUS program offers Master’s and Doctoral students the opportunity to participate in international conferences. In addition, UTM also insists on the study/knowledge of foreign languages by teachers.
The schedule of the event also includes an academic exercise on the knowledge of the language by non-native speakers – “The symbolism of Romanian traditions”. Native Russian-speaking students who are studying Romanian are invited to participate, as well as foreign students from the Republic of Turkey who are following the preparatory year at UTM. Since we are in the month of Mărțișor, students will have to reflect on the beauty of Romanian traditions related to this wonderful symbol of spring, while also addressing the Romanian Easter traditions.
The organizers expect an active participation of students and teachers – about 300 students from UTM and 63 – from the University of Craiova.
The Foreign Languages Week is an event dedicated to the importance of studying foreign languages and intensifying international interuniversity relations.
The full interview can be watched here.
