Moldovans will be accepted in Europe only when they feel comfortable with the official language of their country, Alexei Axan

[Info-Prim Neo Interview with Alexei Axan, professor at the Romanian Language House, {repeated from 19.04.10}] [ - The head of the European Union Delegation to Chisinau, Dirk Schuebel, who has been in Moldova for only half a year, said in a recent interview with Info-Prim Neo that he had “a very dedicated Romanian teacher” who helped him learn a language that he enjoyed very much. We found out later that His Excellency learns our language at the Romanian Language House and that the “dedicated teacher” is you, Mr Alexei Axan. What can you tell us about Dirk Schuebel “the pupil”? Are there any other “pupils”, so to say, with special status?] - We are very grateful that Mr Schuebel chose us to “untie his tongue” and help him acquire fluency in Romanian. The classes that we had until now allow me to say that Dirk Schuebel is a very good student who shows an excellent capacity of assimilating the offered material. He is a person who overcame relatively easily one of the two major “problems” troubling a great part of those who learn Romanian. The first “problem” is related to the particularity of Romanian as a Romance language. Any person who decided to learn it must try very hard from the very beginning to get rid of the thought that Romanian is a language with difficulties and inaccessible grammar elements. Dirk Schuebel came to realize that he will speak Romanian smoothly on condition that he trusts his teacher, the proposed course of study, whose implementation is done based on a well-conceived and efficient educational platform. We should also take into account the fact that His Excellency has a vast experience of learning languages. Besides German, his mother tongue, he also mastered a couple of other languages, including of Latin origin. This is because the Europeans in general find it normal to learn the languages of the countries where they work and live. The second major “problem” of those who decided to learn a foreign language is in finding the necessary time (after classes with the teacher) to practice and refine the learned communication structures, which is a crucial activity in the learning process, because a language is learned for communication and, thus, through communication. In this department the student Dirk Schuebel is a little bit lagging behind, which is due to his busy agenda as the Head of the European Union Delegation to Moldova. Anyway, we are trying to help out by providing tutoring materials conceived under the title “Romanian with and without a teacher” – an excellent textbook that comes with audio records, authored by Liana Pop from Cluj – other exercise books devised by the Romanian Language House for all levels, and self-assessment tools. Self-assessment quizzes come in electronic form and after each new chapter a student has the opportunity to verify his/her performance and apply the acquired knowledge creatively. So, the student Dirk Schuebel is in permanent contact with the teacher. This is, so to speak, distance learning. Of course, it is a collateral element, because the basic learning process takes place at classes with the teacher. Before answering the second part of your question I must say that all our students have a “special status”. But I guess the subtext of the phrase “pupils with special status” that you formulated is different: you wish to know if we have among our students other people with distinguished positions as well. During 2005-2007 the Romanian Language House’ courses were attended by His Excellence Cesare de Montis, the Head of the European Commission’s Delegation to Moldova (2005-2009), together with his wife, Floriana Morelli. Italians by nationality, they mastered the Romanian language quite easily. It’s true that, even though after 6 months they had acquired enough skills to communicate in Romanian, the course ran for two years, because apart from the program of “untying the tongue”, which mainly consists of assimilating basic vocabulary and grammar structures, they wished to have a deeper insight into our history, culture, literature, and the landmarks of our national patrimony. Here I would like to return to the idea that the people from the “far abroad” have the deeply-rooted concept of social integration through learning the language, culture and history of the people they live amidst, either permanently or temporarily. No doubt a “special status” is what we can also assign His Excellency Kalman Mizsei, the Special Representative of the European Union in Moldova. With him we started the course on 21 May 2009. It is with satisfaction that I find Mr. Mizsei speaking Romanian quite well, it’s true, in the limits of the level 1 and 2 programs. We are confident that after the completion of level 3 and the video course Mr. Mizsei will be a fluent Romanian speaker. I would also like to mention that fact that in the early stages of the course there were some small complications for me as a teacher and for Mr. Mizsei as a student. Before the start of the program someone told Mr. Ambassador that Romanian was a difficult language, with a tricky grammar. We agreed with Mr. Ambassador to treat the aspects which some non-specialists in teaching Romanian find difficult as “a richness of forms” of our language. So, when he encounters difficulty in assimilating some peculiarity of the Romanian grammar, Mr. Ambassador jests: “So I see. The Romanian language is rich in forms!” It is a natural thing that he feels the need to compare the grammar of the Romanian language with the ones of other languages which he learned and speaks very well. Currently, among the foreign students attending the Romanian Language House are Fruzsina Baranyai and András Brett from Hungary, Mara Cimasoni and Chiara Dalonzo from Italy, Per Sunvisson from Sweden, Sofian Miecznik from France, Oxana Iashvili from Georgia, Yevgenia Kilina from Rusia. In the last few years the Romanian Language House was attended by people from various foreign countries. The most numerous group was the Italians: Giulia Perego, Barbara Tacini, Michela Porta, Katia Narzisi, Francesca Pieralli, Zaira Spina, Fausto Speronello, Stefano Porta, Lorenzo Fusari, Pino Benedetto, Marco Papini. Other students included: Alina Marić (Sweden), Fatima Luraghi Christal (Peru), Tania Poliak-Grujić (Ukraine), Brian Adams (the United States), Chris Ducker (the United Kingdom), David Larter (France), Ekke van Vliett (the Netherlands), Can Babacan (Turkey), Nelfer Hernandez (Puerto Rico), etc. [ - Which is the main reason that makes foreigners learn Romanian?] - At the introductory lesson, the students enrolled to our courses fill out questioners where they are asked to say why they decided to learn Romanian. To summarize, it is because for the people from foreign countries who are temporarily staying in Moldova to learn Romanian, or any other language, is first of all an act of culture: learning the language is a means of attempting to understand the people that speaks this language. Secondly, the concept of integrating into society is for the foreigners a natural element, which is far from politics or ideology. In this sense, the Moldovan citizens who don’t yet speak the official language for whatever reason, as well as the Romanian speakers, have a lot to learn from the representatives of the Occidental civilization. [ - Are there any “locals” who attend courses at the Romanian Language House?] - Most of our students are teachers, doctors, librarians, journalists, civil servants, university students. There are representatives of other professions as well, such as lawyers, economists, or accountants. There are also students in our groups who are not employed. Regretfully we haven’t yet perceived any interest in our courses from some categories of people who, in virtue of their occupations, are in contact with the populace on a daily basis, who are required by the law to known the official language, and who simply need it in order to advance. These are first of all the people who work in the service industry, particularly the vendors. We have sent out our offer to a number of organizations and we are awaiting some answer. Concerning the reasons that determine the “locals” to join our classes at the Romanian Language House, I can tell you from the same questionnaires that most of them wish to know Romanian because “it is the official language of the country”, “for communication at work”, “to help the children with their Romanian homework”, etc. [ - Is your teaching of Romanian based on some special vision or method?] - The teaching of the Romanian language at our school is done according to an efficient program that was tested over the years. The course is taught with audio-assisted textbooks, accompanied by special exercise books. The essence of the course is in the principle: “We learn Romanian once and for all”. Our experience allows us to assert without any doubt: for a student to speak fluently and don’t feel the need to return to classes is to assimilate the basic vocabulary and grammar structures of the Romanian language over three levels of training. As a rule, the students choose to attend the classes twice a week, so it takes nine months to pass all three levels. On the tenth month we propose them to take the video course which is meant to refine the communication skills by taking the learned structures to automatism. Step by step we discover the “secrets of the Romanian language”, applying during the classes the communication principle: “Do you wish to know Romanian? It’s very simple – TALK!”. Obviously communication cannot take place efficiently and plenary without learning the basics of functional grammar, the knowledge of which facilitates the effortless “manipulation” of the language. Although any grammar is often quite boring, our students manage to master the offered material and feel the joy of a winner who was not very sure of the victory at the beginning of the battle. And this rejoicing gives them further hope, removes the mental barriers and allows them to speak upon the completion of the course a Romanian as beautiful and articulate as all the languages spoken on the planet. [ - Of the people who have attended your courses throughout 12 years since the foundation of the Romanian Language House, how many can boast having mastered Romanian?] - I can tell you that the students who complete the full course are doing pretty well. In this sense, we invite the journalists interested in the insights of learning Romanian and the functionality of the Romanian language in Moldovan society (…) to come to the classes and talk with the students directly, students who are interested in learning the official language and find the time to do it despite all difficulty. By the way, most of our group classes take place in the morning (08:30-10:00 or 09:00-10:30) and in the evening (18:00-19:30 or 18:30-20:00). We make this invitation to the mass media representatives because usually we are solicited to offer interviews ahead of August 31 (when Moldova celebrates the Language Day – IPN) but at that time the groups of the Romanian Language House are on vacation. A couple of days ago I saw an article in a paper that was headlined “The Russians in Moldova – No Opportunities to Learn Romanian!”, which tells of a conference where the participants reached the conclusion that there were no proper conditions in Moldova for the Russian speakers to learn the Romanian language. Well, this is one point of view. But had that paper interviewed our students, they would have found that there is every condition to learn Romanian, including skilled teachers, high-standard teaching, effective methods, modern educational support, etc. What some people really lack is a proper linguistic environment to consolidate their communication skills. This is another point of view. And so our society oscillates between two parallel worlds: some people who study, have every condition, but lament the lack of a favorable environment, and the other people who do not study – or maybe they don’t want to – and who have a different opinion, a counterproductive opinion, I would add. [ - What could be a powerful incentive for the Moldovan citizens who don’t speak Romanian to start learning it?] - I say the people who don’t speak Romanian eventually have to learn and speak the official language of the country they live and work in so that together we could bring this country into the European Union and become European citizens with full rights, with decent living standards, with European salaries and pensions, with protected fundamental rights, with confidence in the day of tomorrow. This is the great stake! Moldova won’t be allowed into the European Union as long as its society remains divided along territorial, but also linguistic, criteria, as well as cultural and political. Such a society generates hazards and instability, and the Europeans are very selective in such cases and it’s their right to be so. They will not accept instability, so the Moldovans need to homogenize, to go through the integration processes like all the EU member-countries did. So, the people who don’t yet speak the official language of this country, which is the Romanian language, should make it clear for themselves what is there to gain and what to lose from the current state of affairs. I suggest we look at things through the eyes of this category of people. Apparently they think that if they don’t speak Romanian they earn some special status in this country, a status which sort of obliges everybody else to speak their language in order to be able to communicate with them. It also appears that this is how they think they preserve their national identity, other than of the majority population, neglecting the integration processes which are absolutely natural for all the countries and all the nations. Yet this state makes Moldovan society divided in several parallel worlds, at least two, if we speak from a linguistic point of view. After all, we have to bear in mind that official languages play a key role in the integration processes. At the same time, the people who don’t speak the language of our country minimize their chances of playing a role in its remaking, in it Europeanization, in speeding up its modernization, and consequently, in acquiring the EU membership. I would even say that this category of population is isolating itself from the rest of society, or even commits discrimination against itself, since it representatives are unable, for example, to apply for certain government posts, which require the knowledge of the official language. Furthermore, it seems to me that the people who don’t speak the official language are living in a constant state of discomfort because they always have to anticipate the reaction of their interlocutors to the fact that they don’t speak the latter’s language. Some representatives of the majority population, too, feel uncomfortable with the official language: some speak it incorrectly while others misname it. And this discomfort generates misunderstanding and instability in entire society. [ - It has been reported that the government works on a new language-learning program for non-speakers of the official language. What do you think this program should include in order to stimulate people to sign up?] - I think this government program should reinforce the principle that the Romanian language should be a mandatory discipline in all the pre-school, school, and university institutions. The base of knowing the official language should be consolidated exactly at this level. In this sense, curricula should be re-devised to put emphasis on communication; because if the students acquire common communication skills it will be easier for them to approach the poetic language of the greats like Eminescu or Vieru, for instance. In this sense, the Romanian Language House has a rich educational experience. For several years now we have been conducting courses for school students. We don’t intend to be an alternative to the school, we just responded to the requests of some parents who wished that their children could be smooth-tongued in Romanian. One thing we are also proud of: school students attend our classes at 16:00 and some of their parents come to classes at 18:00. Both follow the same course of studies so in the evening they have common topics to discuss at home. I think the adult non-speakers of the official language should learn it in order to give a good example to their children. And so the suspicion will disappear that there is some sort of “conspiracy” among a certain category of citizens who do not wish to learn a language that is as good as any other language and should be respected as such, especially since it’s the official language. A separate issue would be about adjusting the linguistic legal norms to the new realities and the European integration goals of Moldova. In conclusion, I would like to commend your intention to make an interview now, and not only on the occasion of August 31. On that day we will celebrate, while the issues of the language should be a daily concern, regardless of the season, calendar or political trends. [Valeriu Vasilica, Info-Prim Neo]