Press Release

Language learners get free web support

19 May 2006

A new EU-sponsored website is launched this month to help adults who want to improve their language skills.

Lingu@NET Europa – a multilingual site in its own right – helps learners understand their strengths and weaknesses and points them towards ways to learn. It guides them in a choice of over 3,500 on-line learning resources, gives advice on overcoming common problems and provides motivational tips. Those who want to practise the language they are learning can find key pals for e-mail exchanges, read and post web logs, take part in live chat with other learners or even go into virtual worlds where they can learn the language.

‘The new Lingu@NET Europa site will help people overcome the sorts of barriers they typically find when learning a language on their own - says Philippa Wright, who led the project for CILT, the National Centre for Languages, ‘If they can’t find resources, they have no-one to practice with, or they just don’t know what to do to improve, our site will help them and allow them to go forward with their language learning. On the Lingu@NET Europa site all the advice is totally independent, written by experts from across Europe, all the resources are quality-assured, and everything on the site is free.’

Isabella Moore, Director of CILT, the National Centre for Languages, said ‘Helping adults to improve their language skills is vital if we are to benefit economically and culturally from what the EU offers. We know that adults of all ages are keen to learn languages but that only a small proportion are able to attend courses. The Lingu@NET Europa site will supplement adult classes and other national and local provision, and I am sure both learners and professionals will welcome it as a source of encouragement and advice.

The Lingu@NET Europa website has been developed by a consortium of expert educational, cultural and technical organisations throughout Europe and can already be accessed in 19 languages. It will be officially launched on 22 May, to mark the start of Adult Learners’ Week in the UK.   For more details, see www.linguanet-europa.org.