Language and Sustainability: Goethe Institute Concludes another Successful Project
The Goethe Institute largest project Connected for a Sustainable Future concluded on December 5th, being was one of the most successful and prolific projects conducted by the institution. 32 schools, 100 pupils and 1000 teachers discussed the world’s most crucial, and environmental, issues within the different disciplines via the German Language from spring to winter, considering the environmental problems in a history, art and biology context. All this with the guidance of international professors from Germany and Vienna. 11 graduates visited Akhaltsikhe, Kutaisi, Tbilisi, Rustavi, Vani and Zugdidi schools and delivered hands-on seminars on sustainable development for the first time in Georgia. Georgia Today attended the conference and interviewed Eike Pockrandt, coordinator of the project at Goethe Institute in Georgia about the aims and the results of the projects. A special handbook was written and published during the project dedicated to it.
Eike, can you tell us what this project dealt with?
Connected for a Sustainable Future was launched in July by the Goethe Institute and funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is the part of the Eastern partnership of Germany and involves people from the Eastern countries. The project was divided into three different phases: 1) Strengthening German as a Foreign Language in the South Caucasus; 2) Connecting language teaching with important issues; and 3) Reviewing and explaining aspects, challenges and opportunities of sustainable development.
The reason we decided to foster German language strengthening is that German is no longer taught in the South Caucasus. It is very sad that for future success, young people and educational institutions choose to learn those languages which are more profitable. We believe that the German language is more favorable in terms of the future higher educational and professional opportunities and, more importantly, in terms of thinking and action. As for why we should connect language with important issues, language is a living phenomenon and it should be practiced, used and strengthened via modern challenges and issues that aim to interest young people to learn. What’s more, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have rapidly succeeded in the last few years. Usually, young people ask what this development is for and how it will be continued. So we want them to get connected with each other through language.
How many schools were involved in the project?
32 schools in total and most of them from rural areas. Approximately, 100 teachers and 1000 German language learning pupils were involved in it. Additionally, we organized a one-week summer school for teachers on the Black Sea; six training courses for teachers in three countries, 50 local initiative projects, as well as an Agriculture and Environmental Pedagogy students exchange. In the framework of the project, we invited international professors like Stphan Wakwitz, Wilhelm Linder, Birgit Kare, Bernadet Veress, Stefan Schleicher, Christine Wogowitsch, Hildegard Kurt, and Gerlinde Massoudi to deliver practical and methodological seminars to teachers. The project has enabled teachers to speak about the issues they never thought they would be capable of. Pupils would go to the lake to check the quality of it, and also discover flora and fauna around the school and this was conducted in the German language of course. It has never been done before and exactly this was our aim to teach them all something totally new.
How satisfactory is the language proficiency in regional schools?
Honestly, it is a big problem. It is taught as a foreign language and only for two hours per week. This is not sufficient to learn the language. I am not an expert in this field but it is up to the Ministry of Education, That said, we have met teachers and students who have an excellent knowledge of the language.
What about future plans?
The Goethe Institute and all working here are hoping to continue this kind of project but it depends on the German Government. Yet since this project has been so successful, we all hope that we will not stop here.
Gerlinde Massoudi, Deputy Director of the Goethe Institute: “I think that this topic is very modern. We want to have topics in our classrooms dealing with current issues not only from literature, science or mathematics. Sustainability is connected to the Paris Climate Change Conference; questions which are very important for the entire world. It is very important to us. It shows how language learning can be useful for the children. For example, they learn German language and they can read text, newspapers, journals in this language about world news and current events that is motivating for the children. In a very limited time we managed to carry out fifty projects in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia where we connected children with government officials to define what the children wanted to change in their schools. They told them what their problems were and asked for help. It is a very interesting for them to be an agent of change in this dysfunctional world. In Armenia, the schoolchildren asked the City Mayor to plant trees on the hills and then he decided to give away more than 1500 trees to plant and those little children turned this small project into a city project. Here, in Georgia, in one of the villages of Kutaisi, the schoolchildren and the teachers visited lakes and laboratories to carry out tests. Through these sorts of activities, children develop as social persons.
Meri Taliashvili