Ladies and gentlemen,

as head of the English Department, it is my honour and pleasure to welcome you to this ELTE - Rutgers intercultural conference taking place within a project sponsored by the Fulbright Commission.

Thank you for accepting the invitation to this event. Let me express my special thanks to the speakers of this morning session:
Peter Medgyes, Deputy State Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education,
Damon Anderson, Regional English Language Officer, American Embassy, Budapest, Therese Buchmeier, Deputy Director of the Institute of International Education, Tibor Frank, Professor of History, department of American Studies, ELTE University.

It is also a great pleasure for me to welcome the American students from Rutgers University.

This conference as well as the whole project on American and Hungarian cultural awareness is a special event in the history of our department. What makes this project special is the fact that - thanks to Project Director Miklos Molnar and his American counterpart - it has introduced our students to a new way of learning, namely learning through personal experience.

During the four years of their studies, our students learn a lot about the English language, about English and American literature, about the history and culture of the English speaking countries and about English language teaching. But the knowledge and skills they acquire are mediated to them by teachers and books. In general, there isn't too much room left for them to take responsibility for and shape the ways of their own learning.

The aim of this Fulbright project, however, in which more than 40 of our students have participated so far, is to bring together American and Hungarian students in a way that they themselves can be sources of first-hand information. The discussions of the students on the webpage of the project demonstrate it clearly that the idea works. Students can organise their own learning and can take responsibility for it, once they are properly guided.

We will hear a lot more about it at the section meetings to which all of you are kindly invited, where students from both universities will make presentations and then round-table discussions will follow.