Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about LinguaFestą

Where in Tours, France was the original LinguaFest' held?

It was held in the building of the giant, modern central marketplace. It was on the entire floor above the marketplace, where 14 rooms ranging in capacity from 10 to 100, to 500 are located.

How much space, and how many rooms were required for the Festival in Tours, France?

There were 14 rooms, ranging in capacity of 10 to 100, plus the main room with a capacity of around 500. Total course capacity was 440 per hour in 1996. In 1997 we will add additional space.

Where did you find your teachers?

In many different places. Some came from the university, for example Ancient Greek, Téké, Dutch. Others came from centers for refugees, for example, Albanian, Ukranian, Somalien, and others. Some teachers I found just be striking up a conversation on the street, for example, Bulu, Swahili, and Lingala. Yet others came from local international associations, for instance, Italian, Arabic, and Espéranto. None of the teachers came from commercial language schools (I am not against having teachers from these schools, but no one volunteered to teach).

Were all of your teachers from France?

All of them lived at the moment in France, in fact about 85% came from within 25 miles of Tours. The great majority, however, were nationals of other countries.

Was the location the same for both years?

Yes.

Has LinguaFest' taken place outside of France yet? I'd be interested in hearing where the idea is being developed.

Other Festivals are now in the planning stages. For example, I have received letters from people wanting to organize LinguaFest's in the Ukraine, Finland, Russia, Italy, and Croatia. I will set up the first LinguaFest' in the United States in, hopefully, 1997 or 1998.

How long were the original LinguaFests?

The first Festival of Languages was just one day: Saturday. Due to its success the following Festival was extended to two days: Saturday and Sunday. Future Festivals may add additional days, especially to give samples of rarely-taught languages in the schools. For example, teachers of Albanian, Bosniac, Chinese, and Zulu can show school children and students a little bit about their language and culture.

I saw that Bosniac was taught during LinguaFestą. Isnąt the traditional name for this language Serbocroate?

Yes, but try telling this to a refugee from Sarajevo who teaches the class! In LinguaFestą we meet up with some interesting sociolinguistic issues. It is partly this cultural and human drama that makes LinguaFestą such a rewarding experience.

At what time did the festivals begin and end?

The 1995 LinguaFestą began at 10 in the morning, and ended at 7 in the evening. The 1996 Linguafestą had the same schedule for Saturday, but on Sunday it ended two hours earlier to give teachers a time to meet each other and have fun and relax a little before the Monday workday.

How many languages were taught during the Festival?

About 30 for the 1995 LinguaFestą, and 67 for the 1996 Linguafestą. We are not sure, but we think that the presentation of 67 foreign languages in a 48 hour period may be some kind of record. Perhaps someone in Cyberland can fill us in on that.

How long did the minicourses last?

Each course was limited to 40 minutes. We considered having longer courses, but the public has a tendency to arrive at any moment during the day, so we have each course start on the hour to keep the late-arriver problem to a minimum.

If each minicourse lasted 40 minutes, and each course began on the hour, what happened during the 20 minutes between the courses?

At 40 minutes past the hour, we started playing (we had a number of international student groups) loud international music in the center of the building. This outburst of music served as a sort of alarm clock telling teachers and students that class was over, and motivating them to stretch their legs a bit, and get out of the classroom and enjoy some African music, or Samba, or Flamenco, and so on!

In total, how many minicourses were given?

We offered 96 minicourses in 1995, and this year we had a whopping 216! I will later explain how we organized the logsitics of this. Suffice it to say for now that my Operations Management class from the University of Illinois MBA program was a big help!

Was each course--the same course, repeated?

Yes, in general each language was presented 3 or 4 times during the Festival. In this way the public could have the opportunity of taking a certain course in the afternoon, for example, if they missed that course in the morning.

What kind of people came to the Language Festival?

All kinds. First of all, we had participants from every age group: there were large numbers of children, usually participating in the classes with their mothers and fathers; we also had many retired people over 65, and even 70 and 80! As far as professions, we never did a survey on this, but I would say that there were many teachers and professors as well as university students.

How many teachers did you have?

In 1995 more than 30, and in 1996 more than 70.

Did you pay the teachers to participate in the Festival of Languages?

No, everyone who particpated in LinguaFestą was volunteer. Not only the teachers, but the organizers and helpers volunteered their time as well.

You mentioned that you had more than 70 teachers, but you had only 67 languages.

Yes. In fact, I think we had closer to 80 volunteer teachers. Many of the courses were team-taught. Sometimes it was a group of friends as in the case of Basque; sometimes it was family members as with Slovak and Boulou; and sometimes it was both family and friends as with Breton.

Can you tell me more about the łfamily˛ teaching?

Sure. Slovak was taught by a mother and daughter team. The daughter knew the most about language pedagogy because she was able to attend our training sessions, and the mother knew the Slovak language best as she lived in the area of the former Czechoslovakia where that language was spoken. They complemented each other.

Another example of łfamily˛ teaching would involve Samuel and Aristide Ze, who are identical twins from Cameroun. They taught Boulou. Imagine a class of Boulou presented by identical twins--a foreign language in stereo!

Do the teachers for the Festival of Languages need to be łreal˛ foreign language teachers with diplomas in their language?

No. Not at all. In fact, the great majority of our language teachers had never taught the language in their lives. For that matter, many of the languages presented had never been taught in the schools. There is no way that you can find a degreed teacher of Albanian, or Boulou, or Cambogian etc. around where we lived!

How did the łteachers˛ who had never taught their language learn how to do it?

We gave them a 2-hour, or a 4-hour training session where we showed them how to use a short series of simple language teaching techniques. We wrote a manual called Trejnadolibro which means Training Book in Esperanto. We used examples of methods and techniques using Esperanto because most of our future teachers could not speak Esperanto, and I am a fluent in it.