Bangalore University Foreign Language department will conduct an ‘International Language Fair,’ an annual feature event of the department, on February 23 at the Jnana Jyothi auditorium.
The objective of the event is to showcase the culture of different countries, whose languages are taught at the department and to help the students in the city to avail the opportunity of learning foreign languages.
Second time
Department of Foreign Languages Chairman Dr K Eresi told reporters on Tuesday that this is the second time the fair has been organised.
“Last year, it was a low-key programme but this year we will have embassies from countries like Japan, France, Italy attending the fair.  The embassies are given a slot of 20 minutes to give presentation on their culture, country and languages,” Dr K Eresi  added.
Stalls
Stalls will be set up at the venue, which will provide information of various foreign language courses, books on foreign languages and also food courts.
Currently, the foreign language department offers six language - French, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, German and Korean. For the academic year 2008-09, the department is planning to introduce Chinese and Portuguese.
Vision
Further, he said that the vision of the department is to make the university a centre for global languages by 2010. “We would like to have 10 foreign languages by 2010.
We have thought of introducing Russian as a 9th language and for the 10th language we are still debating on whether to have Foreign or Asian language,” he added.
Executives
The department also offers courses for executives, which are held on the weekends. They are: French, German, Spanish and Japanese. “The department has signed MoU with Toyota Kirloskar supporting the Japanese programme. For German language, we have got in touch with Bosch and Siemens. We are yet to hear from them,” he said, adding that programme modules will be designed based on the company’s requirement.