ICIAR ALONSO ARAGUAS

Salamanca, the model, is now a concept. It is a training seminar for professional linguists but much more than this, it is a different approach to learning and exchanging experience, one which has proved its worth for five consecutive years, becoming richer and more innovative with each passing year. Where did it originate and why, what made it the success it has become? The ingredients are simple. Take three worlds: academia, professional life in an international organisation and university studies. Perhaps one could add one more, that of vocational training. Blend for a week at room temperature. Hey presto, a successful seminar! There is, of course, far more to it than that, but the basic ingredients are these. What we have done with them and how we have blended and tended them is a rather longer story. Today in 2013 communication is more important than ever, across borders and well beyond the confines of Europe. Leisure travel and retirement schemes, as well as moving elsewhere to find employment, have already changed how we live. In addition, immigration and asylum, conflicts and wars, economic hardship, high unemployment and a sudden change of fortunes in the last five years have led to a massive demographic shift, as people migrate to another country, in search of new opportunities and a better life. In so doing they need not just the motivation to move but also the wherewithal, the skills, the ability to adapt, perhaps to master a new language and a new legal situation. Laws must be understood wherever a person goes to find work, to set up a business, to seek a job, to visit new places or to settle in a new environment. Most of all, these migrants, be they temporarily or permanently in a new country, need to be able to communicate, to speak, write and survive in a different language, a different culture and country, within a different set of laws governing their private and professional lives.