Leuven (The Brussels Morning Newspaper): Schools can now create their own courses, mixing languages with subjects like Latin and science. Director Frank Baeyens wants students to learn Arabic for cultural understanding, but finding teachers is tough.
With the changes in secondary education schools that focus on “modern languages” now have more freedom to shape their courses. They still need to focus on language studies but they can also include some hours for subjects like Latin, economics, science, or math, based on what they want to focus on or what their students are interested in. This allows schools to adjust how much time they spend on these subjects to create a more balanced or specialized education that fits their goals.
How are schools leveraging flexibility to enhance language Education?
Schools are also given a specific number of hours that they can use however they want which gives them more freedom to create their programs. This flexibility helps schools to make learning paths that match the interests and needs of their students. For example, a student might decide to focus a lot on languages while also taking a basic class in economics or science. This approach creates a more personalized and interesting learning experience that gets them ready for different opportunities in the future.
Director Frank Baeyens explains that they want to challenge students with a language that is different from those in the Indo-European family. The goal isn’t for students to speak Arabic fluently but to understand its unique structure and culture which can help broaden their minds. He also mentions that having a teacher with an Arabic background would be valuable as it allows students who speak Arabic at home to see someone they can relate to in a good position, which is important since there aren’t many teachers with diverse backgrounds right now.
It has been said that the umbrella organizations aren’t aware of any other schools that teach Arabic. Some Catholic schools have taught Korean or Swedish before. A week before the new school year, the school still hadn’t found an Arabic teacher and posted a job opening on social media.
