CICERO: Understanding your neighbour
Europeans living in border regions rarely limit themselves to their own country: Belgians work in The Netherlands, Germans go shopping in Belgium.
Open borders, and now, the euro, all make it easier.
However, people still have difficulty understanding each other. That’s why CICERO (Coordinatie en Informatie Centrum voor EuRegional Onderwijs) was started in March 2001.
The centre, based at the Talenacademie in Maastricht, recognises that in border regions, it is more important to have knowledge of the neighbouring language than it is in central regions.
But border regions also have possibilities that central regions don’t have. According to Debby Creusen, the contact person at CICERO, “the goal of this centre is to make language teaching more attractive and more efficient.”Therefore, CICERO tries to implement projects, where, for example, German students write letters or e mails to Dutch students, and vice-versa.
Another project of “school hopping” has a teacher from Maastricht teaching Dutch in Liège, for example.
Fighting prejudices
“What we do then,” explains Creusen, “is compile a database of the various projects, and figure out which ones work best. We are then able to diffuse these good examples over the rest of Europe.”
Although CICERO works with high schools and unemployed people, it targets mainly elementary schools. “Older generations often still have prejudices towards their neighbours. But we found that if children get into contact with their neighbours as early as possible, the prejudices and animosity tend to disappear.”
Creusen stresses the importance of not only learning the language, but also the culture, history, geography and customs of the neighbouring country.
An international network
The concept of CICERO started in 1997, when the founders Albert Raasch (a professor from the University of the Saarland in Germany), and Ruud Halink (director of the Talenacademie in Maastricht) thought of developing a handbook: “The Didactics of Languages of Countries in Border Regions.”
From that exchange, a network was formed. Today, CICERO has nine partners, including the ministries of education from The Netherlands and Germany.
Although CICERO started in Maastricht, it has expanded across Europe, and now includes Estonia, which is interested in creating exchanges with Russia and Finland.
Source: Crossroads print issue, March 2002
