Luxembourg is a particularly multilingual country. There are three official languages: Luxembourgish, French and German. Other languages used on a daily basis are those of the large immigrant communities (Portuguese, Italian …) and of course English as the usual lingua franca of the world of international business and finance, as well as of the staff of the European institutions located in Luxembourg.
Accordingly, the University of Luxembourg is multilingual as well, having chosen English, French and German as its languages, and being a founding member of an international network of multilingual universities.
In this extraordinary context, the MA programme promotes a specific concept of functional multilingualism and is taught in all the three languages of the University of Luxembourg: English, French and German. Students need active knowledge of and fluency in English and additionally either French or German. Comprehension and reading skills in the three languages, and additional ones, are considered as an advantage.
Let us give you some further explanations concerning this concept of functional multilingualism: Working and doing research in multilingual and multicultural contexts of learning and development not only requires competencies in different languages but also an increased awareness of problems, questions and possible synergies related to those contexts. That’s why the MA is designed to challenge you in several respects:
- The programme requires you to be functionally proficient right from the beginning of the programme in at least two of the languages the MA is taught in. Your English needs to be functional for academic use (reading, discussing, writing) as lecturers and professors with international background and from European partner institutions contribute to the programme.
- Either French or German is required as a second working language. Taken together they represent the longstanding luxembourgish specificity of being at the crossroads between the French-speaking and the German-speaking cultures.
- The MA provides you with a setting helping you to improve your language skills in terms of scientific writing, presentations, and working in, on and with multilingual situations. Furthermore, the special mentoring system used throughout the MA supports you in improving your language skills, especially in the third language in use in the programme, the one you might be less or not acquainted with in the beginning. Of course, we also encourage you to bring in all other language skills you have and to develop them further throughout the MA programme. You will decide together with your mentor which language competencies to develop (e.g. improving scientific writing in one language, presentational skills in another language etc.)