LINGUA Applicants' Guide 1994
An Applicants' Guide is now available from LINGUA, the action programme in support of the teaching and learning of foreign languages, for those wishing to make an application for support during the calendar year 1 January 1994 to 31 December 1994. The LINGUA programme, adopted in July 1989, promotes foreign language competence in the European Union. Its principle objective is to assist Member States with the qualitative and quantitative improvement of foreign language teaching and training, by providing grants in support of mobility schemes and innovative projects in the initial and in-service training of foreign language teachers, language learning in vocational and higher education and the setting-up of strategies for language training in economic life. Measures supported by the programme include the promotion of: - Action I: The in-service training of foreign language teachers and trainers; - Action II: The learning of foreign languages in universities and other institutions of higher education and, in particular, to support the initial training of future foreign language teachers; - Action III: Knowledge and use of foreign languages in work relations and in economic life; - Action IV: The development of exchanges of young people; - Action V: Complementary measures. Languages covered are Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Letzeburgesch, Portuguese and Spanish when these are taught as foreign languages. An important function of the programme is to encourage the teaching and learning of the least widely used and least taught of these languages. Funding for selected projects will be based on contracts running for one year at a time. As one of the objectives of LINGUA is to act as a catalyst for innovation, the programme may contribute only a percentage of the total funding required. It is therefore important for applicants to find supplementary funding. The Applicants Guide concentrates on the criteria on which the selection of projects will be made and the procedures to be followed for the submission of applications. It also contains useful information such as listings of the officially designated LINGUA National Agencies, types of establishments providing professional, vocational, technical and general education in the Member States, plus information on other EU programmes in the fields of education, training and youth. The administration of the programme is carried out by the European Commission assisted by the LINGUA Bureau in Brussels in collaboration with the LINGUA National Agencies in each of the Member States and the ERASMUS Bureau. It should be noted that LINGUA will end on 31 December 1994. Its continuity, together with that of the ERASMUS programme (mobility in higher education), will be assured under the new educational programme SOCRATES.