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The Center for Modern Languages and Cultural Integration "Grigore T. Popa" Iași (CeLI) is a "Babel Tower" in which we open the opening to ourselves and to the other, so that we can feel together "at home", no matter how close or from far away we come.Some common starting points are necessary for us to accomplish this: to know ourselves well and very well, each one, including as an ethnic and cultural group, to cultivate our capacity for self-reflection and observation, to identify the differences around and to be positively curious about them, to want to inform ourselves about the specificity of differences, to assimilate them in part and to identify the limits from which knowledge no longer means assimilation and adaptation, but only information.
Grigore T. Popa University is characterized by a unique multicultural density in Iasi, Moldova. The Center for Modern Languages and Cultural Integration represents the quintessence of this phenomenon, the home of all and the chance of a window open to the other.
This inclusive vision is supported by the management of our university, through investments and actions in the medium and long term. The allocation of a modernized and dedicated space is an open statement, which illustrates, without a doubt, the support for such an integrative position assumed by the "Grigore T. Popa" University.
In the medium term, the declared role of the Center is to build a status of "informal embassy" for Iasi and Romania and, equally, for the various countries represented by students who come to study medicine at our university.
In the context of intense professional dynamics, the Center offers the possibility of intercultural and multilingual experiences that allow the practice of diverse professional contexts and, in particular, the support of those involved in overcoming cultural stereotypes and being in positions that promote good communication, understanding and mutual respect.
Based on tradition and innovation, the development project of the Center takes on some perennial values: collaboration between international and Romanian students, between students and teachers, between the academic community of our university and other universities, or with the citizens of Iasi. The Center's major role in the direction of external addressability is to provide Iaș with an opportunity to understand its interculturality, plurilingualism and values through actions with an impact on the local community. The efforts of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Iasi to educate 3,000 foreign students contribute to enhancing the city's valences through the impact of the developer on a large variety of service providers (drivers, librarians, salesmen, real estate owners) who practice / study English and French. , to be able to communicate effectively with their customers. All this complex of social phenomena also has economic efficiency, constituting a contribution to the development, in this sense, of the city. To give figures that speak for themselves about impact and confluence, the statistical average of the monthly consumption of the international student community in the city of Iasi is 1.9 million Euros (648 Euros / person x 3000 students) to which taxes are added on the income from the rents and the income tax from the businesses that develop due to the services offered to these students.
The center aims to supplement the formal language training from English, French, German, Romanian courses with a series of extracurricular activities and by engaging in innovative projects with European funding that, on the one hand, will modernize traditional learning and, on the other hand. , to extend the mental exercise of all participants in the direction of interculturality, informing about the "other", collaboration and intercultural team activities. Coexistence with “the other”, without affecting the uniqueness of the identity, enriches, through the effort itself, to understand how the other is “otherwise”.
Actions such as: "The Intercultural Reading Club", "Holidays of my country", or the award of diplomas of "Ambassador of Iasi / University of Medicine and Pharmacy" Grigore T. Popa ", for excellence, in intercultural initiatives, to support actions generated of students for promoting the learning of foreign languages and for acquiring knowledge about the culture of the countries from which the international students of our university come from, are concrete ways to encourage interculturality and linguistic progress.Innovative European projects, with a linguistic component, have been and will continue to be an excellent resource for modernizing the formal teaching / learning of medical communication, for enriching the materials offered to students and for aligning, among others, the professional training of the teachers of the discipline. to the standards of the current pedagogy, which promote learning based on collaboration, interdisciplinarity and co-creation of knowledge
Professor Dr. Anca Colibaba
Didactic Activity Coordinator
Discipline of Modern Languages and Romanian as a Foreign Language
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