The Language Voluntariate of Pompeu Fabra University is a welcome and support programme aimed at international students who are studying at UPF by means of an exchange programme with their home universities. The LV is also intended at promoting the internationalization of local students and its programme revolves around two main areas- the leisure and cultural programme and the language exchange programme. Thanks to the financial support of the Departament d'Universitats, Recerca i Societat de la Informació de la Generalitat de Catalunya and the UPF International Relations Unit, many of thsose above-mentioned activities can be offered at minimal or non-existent cost.

Leisure and cultural programme

During the whole academic year, the Language Voluntariate offers to the foreign students community - no matter if they are undergraduates or posgraduates- a wide range of leisure and cultural activities in order to show them very many different aspects of the Catalan reality - getting to know its people, its land, the traditions, the local gastronomy,...At the same time, thos activities are also addressed to thos Catlans who are already members of the LV -more than 400- so as to make possible personal, linguistic and cultural exchanges between both groups.

As a novelty, the LV has created this year the so-called Motivats ("motivated", in Catalan) group since those people are actually those who, more or less, on a regular basis have been involved in helping the LV run its programme by means of allocating part of their time in order to boost it. This new proposal comes from a well-structured group made of Catalans students who have become  the organisers of most of the activities we have scheduled and that have made possible, above all, that the Lv programme won autonomy and became open to the participation of a group of students that are getting more and more numerous and enthusiastic.

Within this context, 11 activities have been sceduled per term this year and the LV has offered on a regular basis a presentation session and a welcome party for international students each time the term started. The activities that have been organised around Barcelona are: several guided tours around the Eixample's Goden Quarter; three Tapas Tours around Old Barcelona; tour around the Gothic Quarter, the Raval and the Ribera district; a jazz concert at Ciutadella's greenhouse; two Catalan wine tasting seminars; two cinema trips; two performances of the play My Barcelona  (a funny comedy on Erasmus students attending Catalan universities); a guided tour around the building and exhibits of the Caixa Fòrum museum, and the annual LV dinner. Regrarding the activities taking place in the rest of Catalonia, several guided tours have been organised around the historical and monumental Girona; the city and market of Vic; the historical and Roman Tarragona; a day out at some cellars in Vilafranca del Penedès; a tour around the Modernist and Gaudinian Reus, Sitges on occasion of the Carnival, the metropolitan Collserola Patk, the city of Figueres and the Dalí Museum on occasion of the local festivities, the mountain and monastery of Montserrat, the industrial and Modernist Trrassa, Núria Valley; and a ski weekend trip to Soldeu el Tarter.    

Language boost programme 

this big block of activities basically consists on organising and boosting a language exchange programme between exchange students and Catalan students, which has the double aim of making linguistic and cultural integration easier for exchange students, and promoting the internationalization of local students. Though it is true that we give priority to thos language partners who whish to learn or teach Catalan, we also allocate Catalan speakers as a language partner to thos who request Spanish as their first language choice since experience has shown that this encourages international students to learn Catalan with that same language partner later on. In contrast to other universities' language exchange programmes, UPF does not provide ECTS credits for taking part in teh LV language exchange programme. Therefore, those who participate are truly motivated to meet the specific aims of the programme.

In order to match language partners we ask both involved parties - Catalan and exchange students- which languages they offer and which ones they request. Once offer and demand meet, we organise a formal meeting so that languages partners get together. This year we have also been able to give a copy to each student of the welcome guide Viure a Catalunya.Vocabulari en imatges thanks to the cooperation of the Voluntaris per la Llengua programme run by the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Consorci per la Normalització Lingüística. The LV itself has written some guidelines for the language exchange programme as well. In ototal, during the 2003-2004 acdemic year we have arranged 369 language partners (150 in the first term, 147 during the second term and 77 in the third term, this numbers being proportional to the numbers of students who  join UPF each term) who exchanged Catalan and/or Spanish for the main European Languages.