Department of Modern Languages

OVERVIEW

The Department of Modern Languages (Ecole des Langues Vivantes – ELV) is the university’s interfaculty department that provides language-training courses for the members of the academic community.

Nowadays a reasonable degree of fluency in languages is a necessity in most professional contexts. Being proficient in one or more foreign languages is a valuable asset on any CV. Learning a language is also an opportunity to integrate into other cultures through rich communication. Also, languages are an indispensable tool in scientific education and research, particularly as a means of privileged access to the information shared by many researchers on our planet.

As language teachers, we want to achieve a high level of quality in our professional practice.  Drawing on our individual and shared experiences in several educational fields, we present an innovative language-learning project at the University of Namur.

“A different language is a different vision of life” – Federico Fellini

“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.” – Flora Lewis

“Learning another language is a bit like becoming someone else” – Haruki Murakami

“With languages, you are at home anywhere”– Edmund de Waal

“One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way” – Frank Smith

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart” – Nelson Mandela

“To have another language is to possess a second soul”– Charlemagne