At the request of educators from Germany, Denmark, Belgium and France, Oksana Horda, PhD, and Halyna Boiko, MA, researchers from the International Institute of Education, Culture and Diaspora Relations, Lviv Polytechnic National University, held an online scientific and methodological seminar within the series «IECDR Educational Publications: New Approaches to Teaching the Ukrainian Language» on November 7, 2024.
It should be noted that during the year, the Institute has already organised such events for teachers from a number of European countries and Brazil. The seminars are held under the auspices of the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) International Educational Coordinating Council (IECC)
At the beginning of the event, Lyuba Lubchyk, Chair of the UWC IECC, in her welcome speech expressed the gratitude to the participants for keeping being Ukrainians in the world and for their hard work, often on a volunteer basis, to preserve and promote the Ukrainian language and culture. Mz. Lyubchyk also stressed the importance of the work carried out by the IECDR staff for the Ukrainian community worldwide.
Iryna Kliuchkovska, Director of the IECDR, Doctor of Philosophy, Honorary Professor of Lviv Polytechnic, also expressed her gratitude to the participants. Iryna Kliuchkovska spoke about the great contribution made by those Ukrainians abroad who have chosen the mission of teaching Ukrainian language and culture to our future – children who have been forced to leave their homeland. The role of Ukrainian educators outside their country, as noted by Mz. Kliuchkovska, is extremely important in the current circumstances, as they are the ones who care about preserving our identity.
Iryna Kliuchkovska also expressed her gratitude to the IECC for its cooperation with the IECDR and its ongoing support of all the Institute’s activities.
During the seminar, the IECDR experts:
- told how to effectively organise the process of teaching Ukrainian to children using the materials of the My Friends textbook (alphabet);
- informed the participants about the content of educational publications for basic and intermediate levels of language proficiency, in particular the textbooks Key to Ukraine: Cities and People in two parts and the textbook Catch Skovoroda;
- shared their experience of working with the Institute’s educational publications to teach Ukrainian at these levels and gave advice on how to adapt these materials for lower levels.
