Switzerland: Language programme aims to boost integration

Switzerland: Language programme aims to boost integration

Via SwissInfo:

The Federal Migration Office has launched a language training system specifically defined around the integration needs of migrants. The course will be gradually introduced in collaboration with the cantons from the summer.

Called “FIDE – learn, teach and assess French, Italian and German in Switzerland”, the training system will become the nationwide norm for immigrant language training.

Its focus will be on giving immigrants the language competence needed to undertake such ordinary tasks such as consulting a doctor or attending parent-teacher meetings.

 (source)

Austria: Kurz tackles immigration at school level

Austria: Kurz tackles immigration at school level

Via the Austrian Times:

Integration Secretary Sebastian Kurz, 26, was at the ministry of interior affairs this week discussing with educationalists whether schools were failing in their mission of integration.

(...)

Going further, he stated how: ‘In the capital, the percentage of people of migrant stock rises to 39%. Vienna like many other European capitals has 150 languages spoken in its schools. At primary school level, one in two pupils is of a migration background, mostly from the Balkans and Turkey.

Under the motto, ‘Integration through achievement’, the question of language was a major theme as schools are frequently the last bastions of community in urban settings. Some Viennese schools in districts like Brigitenau and Ottakring have a migrant intake that is over 80%. 

(source)

Netherlands: Moroccan, Polish criminals speak each other's language

Netherlands: Moroccan, Polish criminals speak each other's language

Via De Telegraaf:

Acting police chief in the Haaglanden district, Paul van Musscher, says that Moroccan youth speak with their criminal colleagues in Polish and vice versa.

Van Musscher says this shows there's a melting pot in the neighborhoods and that they have close contacts with each other as they enter the criminal world.  "By speaking each other's language you create new trade relations.  This is truly a 'VOC mentality' of which Balkenende will probably not be proud."

Former Dutch PM Balkenende used the term 'VOC mentality' (Dutch East India Company) to encourage Dutch entrepreneurship.

Belgium: Nationalists want language requirement for voting rights

Belgium: Nationalists want language requirement for voting rights

Via VRT:

Belgium's largest party, the opposition Flemish nationalist N-VA, wants to ensure that only non-EU foreigners who speak the local language can exercise their vote.

Lawmaker Ben Weyts: "There should be conditions linked to integration, e.g. knowledge of the language of the local area where you are living. In Flanders this means knowledge of Dutch. If you want to have a say in the administration of your municipality, you should also have the politeness to become familiar with the language of the municipality. If it's up to us, then we favour linking language conditions, integration conditions, to acquiring Belgian nationality and casting your vote."

(source)

Sweden: More illiterates at Swedish language courses

Sweden: More illiterates at Swedish language courses

Via Stockholm News:

An increasing number of the students at the Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) courses are illiterates according to the public radio broadcaster SR International. Compared with 2006, the number of students with only one or two years of elementary school has doubled. However, according to SR International, the SFI courses are not adapted to this new reality.

One example is an SFI-course in Tensta, northwest Stockholm, where one out of four students has small or none school experience. Most of them are women and they have big difficulties to manage in everyday life.

(source)

Netherlands: Immigration minister wants to get rid of 'allochtoon'

Netherlands: Immigration minister wants to get rid of 'allochtoon'

Via DutchNews:

The word allochtoon, literally meaning non-native, should no longer be applied to people born in the Netherlands, immigration minister Gerd Leers told a meeting on Monday night, according to the Telegraaf.

'I want people born in the Netherlands to be called Dutch, plain and simple, not non-native,' Leers told the readers of women's magazine Libelle.

(source)

Germany: Urban slang should be recognized as dialect, says expert

Germany: Urban slang should be recognized as dialect, says expert

Via the Local:

The street slang spoken by young people in Germany’s big cities is so defined that one language expert is arguing for it to be recognised as a dialect.

(...)

“Kiezdeutsch”, which differs from city to city, is most common in multicultural areas, where different languages are mixed, said Wiese.

Young people of Turkish or Arabic origin seem to dominate the wannabe-dialect, she said.

Dalia Hibish, a 15-year-old from Berlin, has been working on a language project with Wiese.

She said she spoke mostly Arabic yet the majority of her neighbours are English-speaking and is taught in German - but in the school yard she speaks “Kiezdeutsch” – which for her is a mix of all these language.

(source)

Sweden: Agency slams immigrant language class failings

Sweden: Agency slams immigrant language class failings

Via the Local:

Many of Sweden's municipalities fail to place newly arrived immigrants in Swedish language classes within the time frames stipulated by law, a new investigation has found.

“It's regrettable that municipalities don't prioritize the possibility for new arrivals to start their education as soon as possible,” Erica Sahlin, a project leader with the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (Skolinspektionen), said in a statement.

(source)

Netherlands: Dutch language gaining ground in mosques

Netherlands: Dutch language gaining ground in mosques

Via RNW:

Dutch mosques are beginning to phase out Arabic-only sermons. Research at Utrecht University has shown that Surinamese Muslims are leading in this respect.

Researcher Nico Landman told the ANP agency that such a development is logical, seeing that Dutch is the language that the Surinamese commonly speak in the Netherlands. There are approximately 20 Surinamese mosques in the Netherlands.

Finland: Finnish-Somali fights for Swedish minority rights

Finland: Finnish-Somali fights for Swedish minority rights

Via YLE:

Ahmed Hassan was nine when he arrived in Finland as a refugee from Somalia. In Finland, he grew up in a Swedish-speaking environment. Today he is on a mission for other foreigners to learn Swedish, Finland’s other official language.

In an interview with YLE’s Swedish-language radio news this week, Hassan, 27, says Finnish-Swedish culture is a part of his life. He is an active member of the Swedish People’s Party and works with helping foreigners integrate into Finland.

(source)

Flanders: Poor Dutch skills among Turks, Moroccans

Flanders: Poor Dutch skills among Turks, Moroccans

Via Het Belang van Limburg (Dutch)

Flemish Turks and Moroccans have poor Dutch, according to a new book by professor Johan Ackaert (Hasselt University) about the integration of immigrants. 25% of Flemish Turks and 20% of Moroccans either don't or barely understand written Dutch. Half the Turks and a third of the Moroccans only speak Dutch now and then. 15% of the Turks and 10% of the Moroccans never do.

Stockholm: Immigrant women put Tensta Christmas market on the map

Stockholm: Immigrant women put Tensta Christmas market on the map

Switzerland: Immigration law to require language, employment, respect for the law

Switzerland: Immigration law to require language, employment, respect for the law

Via the Local:

Non-EU workers and their relatives will have to prove knowledge of one of Switzerland's national languages if they want to stay in the country.

Immigration permits for non-European Union citizens will be harder to get in Switzerland, but the country will also have to improve its efforts to integrate the newly arrived. Those are the two main goals of the proposed new Immigration and Integration Act presented on Wednesday by the Federal Council, in agreement with the cantons.

Netherlands: 'Half the country would be embarrassed' by integration test

Netherlands: 'Half the country would be embarrassed' by integration test

Via DuchNews:

A writer who last month won the EU’s literature prize on behalf of the Netherlands has failed his citizenship test and now has to go through a complete integration course, NRC.next reports.

Rodaan Al Galidi came to the Netherlands in 1998 as a refugee from Iraq and was allowed to take the fast-track test to prove he had mastered all aspects of Dutch society.

Sweden: Arabic in Europe

Sweden: Arabic in Europe

Belgium: School hires teacher who doesn't speak Dutch to teach Turkish kids

Belgium: School hires teacher who doesn't speak Dutch to teach Turkish kids

Via HLN (Dutch):

A Catholic school in Lommel hired a Turkish-speaking teacher to teach all the Turkish pre-schoolers. "This way the children who haven't learned a word of Dutch at home feel safer," says director Danny Huijsmans. Professors for language development and Flemish minister of Education Pascal Smet encourage the approach.

Germany: Turkish president critical of language tests

Germany: Turkish president critical of language tests

Via Deutsche Welle:

In addition to expressing his desire to pick up the pace on stalled talks with the EU regarding membership, Gül called for visa restrictions for Turkish business travelers to be loosened to facilitate better economic relationships. Wulff lent his support to this idea and recommended that the government review these policies.

However, Wulff held his ground in the face of Gül's criticism of Germany's policy regarding a language test for people in Turkey who move to be with a spouse in Germany. Since 2007, anyone coming to Germany following marriage must pass a language test in order to be allowed to come. Gül said this clause was a violation of human rights.

Finland: Shortage of funds threatens language instruction for immigrants

Finland: Shortage of funds threatens language instruction for immigrants

Via YLE:

There are wide variations to be found in the teaching Finnish as a second language in public schools. With many local governments suffering a shortage of funds, non-required subjects, including separate language instruction for children of immigrant background, have been targets for savings.

Malmö: Police to learn Arabic, Muslim culture

Malmö: Police to learn Arabic, Muslim culture

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Sweden: Language-learning bonus flops

Sweden: Language-learning bonus flops

Via the Local:

The government’s offer of performance-based bonuses to immigrants who learn Swedish in under a year has failed to produce results, according to a new report.

Bonuses of up to 12,000 kronor ($1,900) seem not to have been incentive enough for students in Swedish for Immigrants (Svenska för Invandrare – SFI) courses, as less than a fifth of the government’s money has been spent, Sveriges Television (SVT) reports.

“I had hoped that more would have received the bonus to allow integration,” said integration minister Erik Ullenhag to The Local.

(source)