The 22 enrolled Eritrean students completed in January 2005 successfully the second module of their four module education
in Mother Tongue and Educational Studies.  

This second module (August 2004 – January 2005) was coordinated by Karina Kleivan (Centre for Bilingualism and
Interculturalism, CVU Copenhagen & North Zealand) and focused comprehensively upon linguistic aspects, such as
language description, language policy and language maintenance, code-switching, academic language contrasted with
vernacular language, dialects compared with standardised language, orality, literacy and biliteracy, and the role of second
language in the Eritrean educational system. Also topics concerning a wider conception of language have been covered, i.e.
dyslexia and other learning difficulties. 

The exam papers reflected the multitude of topics of covered:  “The Role of the Mother Tongue for Learning English”,
“Adult Female Literacy”, “Size and Age Variation in Schools: Effect on Literacy”, “Textbook Language and the Ordinary
Language of the Elementary School Students”, and “A Case Study of Parental Attitudes towards Mother Tongue Learning”. 

Two Danish guest lecturers - Dr. Gunna Funder Hansen (University of Southern Denmark) and Birgitte Balslev-Olesen
(Danida consultant, based in Eritrea) - contributed to the second module with their committed inputs regarding respectively
literacy and inclusive education. 

The students writing process concerning the various semester essays and the concluding exam paper was additionally helped
along by Dr. Nirmala‘s (Asmara Teacher Education Institute and Eritrean Ministry of Education) diligent English language
supervision. 

The students have apart from being full-time students also during this second module of their Advanced Diploma been involved
in the ongoing work with creating a national curriculum regarding mother tongue. The authors, Halima Mohammed (Asmara
Teacher Education Institute) and Kirsten Borberg (CVU Copenhagen & North Zealand) accepted to have their
work-in-progress distributed to the class, who took the role as “The Critical Friend” most seriously, resulting in extensive
feedback in the form of constructive criticism and suggestions. 

The third module – commencing end of January 2005 - is coordinated by Marcus Balslev (Ciced) and will deal predominately with
curriculum development, organization theory, research positions, and language testing.