Conference in the series “Multilingualism as an Opportunity” organised by Nysa University
On 24-26 May 2023, the Faculty of Neophilology of the University of Applied Sciences in Nysa hosted the participants of International Scientific Conference “Multilingualism as an Opportunity”, whose theme this year was: Languages and language education in the course of social changes. This was the ninth conference organised by the International Consortium “Multilingualism as an Opportunity”, whose members apart from Nysa University are universities from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Finland. The main purpose of the Consortium’s work, as well as conferences organised together, is to combine the results of researchers’ work with the experience of practitioners in order to develop multilingualism.
More than 30 speakers from Poland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Switzerland and the Czech Republic participated in the conference organised by the University of Applied Sciences in Nysa as well as online guests from Ukraine. The poster session, meanwhile, presented projects carried out by Germanists of the Nysa University’s Faculty of Neophilology. The conference opened by prof. Tomasz Wicherkiewicz’s lecture who was representing Poznań University, outlining linguistic situation in Poland, drawing attention to the presence of many languages in the Polish landscape and enormous value of this diversity.
In addition to numerous speeches aimed at presenting aspects of language politics and related education, not only in European countries, the conference included a walk through the multicultural city of Nysa led by Mr Antol Bukała, who heads the Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism at the Nysa City Hall, as well as meeting with representatives of organisations based in Opole which support German language teaching in the region. Among them can be mentioned: the House for Polish-German Cooperation, the LernRaum Project, the Social-Cultural Society of Germans in Opole Silesia and the German Minority Youth Association. The visitors showed great interest in the Documentation and Exhibition Centre for the Germans in Poland, where an interactive multimedia exhibition was organised on a small area, allowing people involved in the history of Poles and Germans to look at it through the eyes of people burdened with many stereotypes.
On Thursday evening conference guests and participants in the 13th International Staff Training Week were able to listen to poems in Lemko, Silesian, Ukrainian and Kashubian languages read by poetry translator Bartłůmjej Wanot and music by Tomasz Wojdyła, a student at the Faculty of Jazz of the UAS in Nysa.
The conference was undoubtedly an excellent opportunity for the participants to exchange experiences, opened up space for discussion and created new possibilities with regard to further joint international ventures. And it was not without significance that participants repeatedly emphasised the high level of the papers, as well as the pleasant atmosphere that accompanied the meeting.
Partners of the conference were the House for Polish-German Cooperation in Opole, the Social-Cultural Society of Germans, the LernRaum Project, the Documentation and Exhibition Centre for the Germans in Poland, the Research Centre of the German Minority, the Provincial Public Library and the weekly magazine Schlesisches Wochenblatt.
The conference received funding from the Foundation for Polish-German Cooperation.
The organizers would like to thank the authorities of the University of Applied Sciences in Nysa and all those who contributed to the success of the event.
Monika Witt, Ph.D., Prof.
Galeria
