The XV Summer School «Step to Ukraine» of the International Institute of Education, Culture and Diaspora Relations brought together people willing to study the Ukrainian language from nine countries – not only ethnic Ukrainians, but also those who are interested in our country and traditions.
The students of the Summer School shared what motivated them to study the Ukrainian language, why they chose to study it with IECDR and what moments of study they remember the most.
– I am Romanian, but for 15 years I lived in Chernivtsi. My family moved there when I was two years old. We now live in Romania, but I still feel the love for the Ukrainian language that my teacher instilled in me – I studied in a Romanian-language school and studied Ukrainian as a state language. After all, all my childhood, the most active period of my life is connected with Ukraine. I studied at the university, majoring in Ukrainian Language and Literature, and my academic activity is related to this topic, says one of the students of the Summer School «Step to Ukraine» Sarah Martha Deak. When I heard about the IECDR Summer School, I immediately realized that this is where I can find people who will help me learn the language at a high level. And I was not mistaken: I really raised my level of Ukrainian, the teachers very carefully corrected our accent, pronunciation. For me, this is the motivation to come to Ukraine again.
Another student, Natalia Burduzha, has a similar life story:
– I was born and raised in Chernivtsi, where I studied at a Romanian-language school. I am a philologist by education. Now I teach the Ukrainian language in the senior classes of the lyceum in Seret. I cooperate with the Union of the Ukrainians of Romania, which has a number of joint projects with Ukraine, organizes conferences and exchanges of students. There I learned about the IECDR Summer School. During my studies, I liked the most how our teachers were selected to our level, and the topics – to our interests. It was also important that we were introduced to the innovations of Ukrainian spelling.
The students are convinced that the Ukrainian language is worth learning, because it opens up new horizons more than any other Slavic language.
