EDK President wants to rethink foreign language teaching because of AI
Published: Sunday, Dec 22nd 2024, 07:40
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Silvia Steiner, President of the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education (EDK), has defended early French at primary school level. In an interview with "NZZ am Sonntag", she emphasized the importance of language skills for the cohesion of Switzerland.
At the same time, however, she conceded that foreign language teaching needs to be rethought in light of artificial intelligence. "It's no longer about stubbornly learning vocabulary, but rather about developing a feel for the language or assessing whether something that a computer program translates for me is right or wrong," said Steiner. She sees the implementation of these approaches as a task for teacher training colleges.
She takes a differentiated view of the fact that studies show that reading and writing skills are poor in Switzerland: "We can't constantly cry out for digitalization, install spelling programs on all computers and then demand that children know exactly how to spell every word correctly.
At the end of this year, Silvia Steiner will hand over the chairmanship of the Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education. The Zurich Director of Education was elected to office by the cantonal directors of education in 2016. Her successor will be Valais State Councillor Christophe Darbellay (center), who was previously Vice President.
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