LinguaFest' Organize your own Language Festival!

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L i n g u a F e s t' ^Ô

LinguaFest Goals and Objectives

Promote foreign language learning for everyone: kids, parents, and even grandparents.
Promote language diversity in the world.
Promote cultural diversity through foreign language teaching.
Help and encourage children to learn foreign languages.
Show that you can have fun while learning a language.
Introduce rarely- or never-taught languages to the public.
Provide a family learning activity for the local communities.
Present new, creative language teaching activities and methods.

LinguaFest' 1995 (March 11)

This was the first big Festival of Languages which I organized in Tours, France. We had around 30 teachers who gave minicourses for 32 foreign languages. In total 96 minicourses, each of which lasted a short 40 minutes, were given to almost 800 visitors. The Festival started at 10 in the morning and finish around 7 in the evening. Festival attendance was highest from 3 to 6 o1clock

Look at the most popular LinguaFest' languages for the 1995 festival:

LinguaFest' 1996 (March 16 and 17)

This was the second big Festival of Languages. It was much larger than the first with attendance to the Festival tripling from 780 to around 2350. In total, 70 teachers gave language minicourses for 67 languages, making LinguaFest, perhaps, the largest two-day presentation of foreign languages in the world. The Festival was on the weekend, and many of the short courses were completely filled due to heavy Sunday afternoon attendance. The Festival was held at les Halles in Tours, France.

LinguaFests 1997 LinguaFest 1997 had a record 82 languages taught in 264 mini-courses over the two day period. It was organized by the association LinguaFest 37 of Tours, France. Attendance approaching 4000 was so heavy that much of the public could not get into many of the afternoon courses. Some 300 volunteers worked during the Festival as teachers (about 100), musicians (112), and persons at international and cultural information booths. Other volunteers prepared international foods. Linguafest was covered not only the local press, but was on prime time television (TF1) in France and other countries. The language of honor was Rromani--the gypsy langquge. The Festival was directed by LinguaFest 37 of Tours. Take a look at the attendance by language for the 1997 LinguaFest.

Future LinguaFests

More and more LinguaFests are already being planned. Small Festivals are being considered for neighborhoods; other limited Festivals are being set up for villages and small towns. Yet other large Festival of Languages are being developed for major cities. Getting to know our neighbors through their languages is an idea whose time has come for our Global Village. Like Internet, LinguaFest' has a niche for the future.

More information coming. LinguaFest' is a simple idea; it is interesting; it works; and, it is free! We charged nothing to attend the Festival of Languages in 1995 and 1996. In addition, we received no subsidies from the local, state, or national governments. We did these festivals because we love languages--all languages--and we love to teach them and see the public having a good time.

If you would like to know how you can set up a LinguaFest' in your school or university, or if you would like some ideas for planning a LinguaFest1 for your town or community, please come back to my homepage from time to time. I will be giving much more information on how you can set up a LinguaFest' and have as much fun as we did!

What LinguaFest1-goers said about the 1996 FestvialThe following is a representative sample of some of the comments; the original answers are in French because the Festival took place in Tours, France.

It is a good chance to meet people from different cultures.

The minicourses were a great way to get interested in certain languages.

I especially enjoyed the courses in Russian and Esperanto.

The Festival is an opportunity to take a language that is never taught elsewhere.

You should have LinguaFest' more often.

I loved the wide variety of languages.

We were happy to meet teachers from other lands.

It is fantastique to see so many foreign languages. I felt like I was in the Tower of Babel! A dream come true for me!

I went with my kids and they loved it!

I liked everything about the Festival of Languages!

I really liked the festive atmosphere, the fun courses, and the discovery of new lands.