Language Component in 2022: Summer Academy, BombeZNO Camp, Manuals for Learning Ukrainian

Despite the fact that due to the war most activities of the Language Component of our project were held online, they were surprisingly successful and gathered a lot of participants. Besides, we managed to finalize important publications during the year.

Read more about this below.

Summer Academy 2022

This year the Summer Academy was held on 15-19 August in an online format. It was attended by more than 60 participants, and the expert circle consisted of specialists from Ukraine and Canada.

Traditionally, the Summer Academy was designed to enhance pedagogical skills to apply modern methods of teaching Ukrainian as the state language to students.

Following the results of the Academy, we have published a series of materials that can be found at the following links:

• what Is differentiated Instruction and how to use It;
• strategies to support students affected by trauma;
• how children respond to stress and how to help them;
• how to teach children in wartime.

BombeZNO Camp 2022 

In order to motivate children from the Romanian- and Hungarian-speaking communities of Chernivtsi and Zakarpattia regions to speak and learn Ukrainian, in November-December we conducted an educational and entertainment extracurricular program «Bombezno Camp 2022».

The program was run for three weeks – from 28 November to 16 December in an online format. In the course of the program children worked with facilitators, listened to lectures given by invited speakers, interacted with their peers in teams and worked on creating projects.

Massive attacks on critical infrastructure, power cuts and poor Internet connection and communication did not stop the «BombeZNO Camps»: more than 300 children took part in all program activities and another 300 ones could join some of them.

Before organizing the camp for children, we conducted training for teachers in order to prepare them to be mentors of student teams during the «Bombezno Camp 2022». During the training, 60 teachers mastered effective mentoring, got acquainted with the methods of gamification of learning and other latest educational methods.

Training sessions and online courses

Responding to new realities due to the beginning of a full-scale war, in May – June we organized and conducted the online marathon «Teaching and Learning in Wartime». These were 10 sessions for students, their parents and teachers that helped acquire useful skills and knowledge for effective learning in difficult times.

At the end of the year, we held training sessions on teaching Ukrainian as the state language for methodologists of In-service Teacher Training Institutions and teachers of Ukrainian from primary schools of Zakarpattia and Chernivtsi regions where the languages of instruction are Romanian and Hungarian.

The training sessions were designed to enhance methodologists and teachers’ pedagogical skills to apply modern methods of teaching Ukrainian as the state language to students.

Also, during 2022, teachers regularly took online courses developed by us – for teachers of Ukrainian and a course for teaching in Ukrainian for teachers of Biology, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. 

Learning materials

One of the most important projects for us in 2022 is the development of a set of learning materials for learning Ukrainian as the state language in grade 1 of general secondary education institutions where the languages of instruction are the languages of national minorities. 

The set, which consists of a student manual, a workbook and a teacher’s guide, has already been authorized by IECM and received a relevant code. An additional advantage of the set is the interactive digital content – tests, games, songs and other forms to practice language skills.

In September, we presented the set of manuals in public and told educators about it. You can get acquainted with these materials and download them from the NUS hub using this link.

We have also developed:

• a multilingual online dictionary of mathematical terms;
• a mobile application for learning Ukrainian;
• a program of the integrated course of Ukrainian as the state (second) language.

All these materials have already received the IECM authorization and code. In the near future, we will tell you more about them in our NUS hub. 

Last year, we also developed programs for higher education institutions to teach Ukrainian as the state language, and we will complete the development of a guide for universities soon.

Read about the results of other Clusters of our project at the following links:

• Cluster 1: teacher professional development;
• Cluster 2: education and the NUS reform promotion;
• Cluster 3: development of a modern educational environment in NUS.