Luxembourgish E-Learning Platform Announced

On Thusday 14 April 2022, Luxembourg's Minister of Education, Children and Youth, Claude Meisch, presented the diversity of the Luxembourgish teaching offer for adults as well as the adaptation of the legal basis of the National Institute of Languages ​​(l'Institut national des langues - INL), in the presence of the director of the INL, Maisy Gorza, and the director of the Adult Education Department, Erik Goerens.

A new e-learning platform, new teaching materials and courses abroad have been detailed as well.

Minister Meisch underlined: “Interest in our language has clearly grown in recent years. The number of people learning Luxembourgish is increasing in our country, but also abroad. The offer and the possibilities of learning our language are diversifying: from the classic language course in Luxembourg, to online training accessible to the four corners of the world”.

Learn Luxembourgish in Luxembourg

The number of Luxembourgish course participants has doubled in ten years

The Luxembourgish language has an important place in Luxembourg's multilingual society and the public interest in learning Luxembourgish language has been steadily increasing for several years. In 2017, the government set, in its strategy to promote the Luxembourgish language, with four main objectives in view to support the development and evolution of Luxembourgish language. Among these objectives were to prominently encourage the learning of the Luxembourgish language and culture.

The INL offers Luxembourgish courses at its three sites: in Luxembourg-City at place du Glacis, in Esch-Belval and in Mersch. An additional branch will soon open its doors in the Nordstad. In ten years, the number of enrollments has more than doubled, going from 2,614 in 2011/2012 to 5,681 this school year. Over the past five years, the Luxembourgish courses for adults of the INL and the Ministry's Adult Education Service have attracted more than 68,000 registrations. The current semester has over 2,700 learners spread across the various sites.

The high demand has led to an increase in need for teachers. Over the past seven years, the number of Luxembourgish teachers at the INL has increased from 33 to 60.

Other INL offers

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the INL has devoted great efforts to the digitilisation of its courses and is actively pursuing the development of its digital offer. The blended-learning courses, parly of distance learning and partly face-to-face, are now part of the global offer. The language test exists in a digital version and a version on a digital tablet is being programmed. A new test level in Luxembourgish will be ready for the start of the 2022/2023 school year and  accessible worldwide.

The tests and diplomas of the “Lëtzebuergesch als Friemsprooch” (LaF) training are extended and a new online version is in development.

New teaching materials

"Schwätzt Dir Lëtzebuergesch?" is the title of the manual produced by the INL. After the volumes devoted to levels A1 and A2, volume B1 was published in 2020. New materials are currently being developed for level B2. It will no longer be a classic manual but online teaching material so that the activities can easily be enriched and adapted to current events.

Learn Luxembourgish in the Greater Region

The Luxembourg State is continuing its efforts to train cross-border workers who come to work in the Grand Duchy. The aim is to offer Luxembourgish courses to workers in different sectors: hospitals, businesses, etc.

The Ministry of Education, Childhood and Youth and the Grand Est Region have thus signed an agreement which allows apprentices and students from vocational schools of the Nancy-Metz Academy to benefit from an introduction to the Luxembourgish language in a blended-learning. Learners acquire the necessary skills to communicate in a basic way with the Luxembourg administrations and companies.

The Ministry's Adult Education Service (SFA) has concluded an agreement with Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate allowing higher education institutions in these German states to offer Luxembourgish courses financed by the Ministry of Education.

In February 2022, the Embassy of Luxembourg in Paris organised a week-long Luxembourgish course which was very successful. Following the positive experience, collaboration within the embassies around the world will be strengthened to respond to growing interest from abroad.

Learn Luxembourgish around the world

A free online offer to learn Luxembourgish all over the world

A new learning platform, called “Lëtzebuergesch léieren online”, will be launched at the start of the 2022/2023 school year. The initial offer includes modules at level A1 and A2 (corresponding to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) and will be gradually expanded to level C1.

The platform offers an interface in German, French, English, Portuguese and Luxembourgish, modules for formal learning (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, etc.) and informal learning (news, cultural life, etc.), and specialised modules devoted to dozens of academic and professional topics.

The learning device also provides an online social network that allows learners from all over the world to get in touch and exchange experiences.

A suitable legal basis for the INL

Since its creation in 1991, the Luxembourg Language Center, which became the National Institute of Languages ​​(INL) by the law of 2 May 1999, has received new missions in terms of learning and has become the national authority in terms of teaching of the Luxembourgish language. The new legal basis anchors and clearly defines its missions within the framework of the certification of Luxembourgish, the training of trainers in Luxembourgish, the development of teaching materials, the development of the LaF test, the reform of the Zertifikat Lëtzebuerger Sprooch a Kultur (ZLSK ) and the creation of a Certificate for Vocational Education (Certificat pour l'enseignement à visée professionnelle - CEVP).

The related bill will be on the agenda of the government council in the coming weeks.