Articles

Necessity


The presence of more than 4.000.000 people of Greek origin in morethan 100 counties around the globe and the organized teaching of the Greeklanguage and culture to these people, in at least 40 of the 100 countries,in conjunction with the economic, political and cultural presence of theGreek immigrants abroad, prove in the most profound way that Hellenismlives and acts, to a great extent, beyond the Greek borders.
The preservation and the development of the Greek language to Greekimmigrants, are at a crucial point today, as school age people are nowimmigrants of the third generation. This fact implies that in the bestcase, these people are bilingual - with the language of the reception countrybeing the first language - and in many cases monolingual, speaking onlythe language of the reception country. The last case applies particularlyto children from mixed marriages.
The necessity of the active participation of Greece as a metropolitancenter is, therefore, imperative, especially in the fields of in-servicetraining of teachers and the production of teaching material.