From 8 to 18 August 2024, a number of scientific, educational and outreach events took place as part of the international project “Familiensprachschule”, organised by the NGO “International Society of Germans in Ukraine – Wiedergeburt”, headed by Volodymyr Pinkovskyi. The large-scale scientific, educational and intercultural exchange in the field of non-formal education was initiated by the Council of Germans of Ukraine and financially supported by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Integrated Territorial Development of Germany through the Charitable Foundation “Development Society”.
National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” was represented at the event by Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Department of Germanic Philology and Translation Tetiana Kushnirova, who took an active part in the project and gained additional skills and professional knowledge.
During the project, participants had a unique opportunity to learn German using the world’s most advanced non-formal learning methods. The project programme included the study of German language and culture in their interconnectedness through creative classes, workshops, work with a psychologist, and trips to the picturesque corners of Transcarpathia.
Classes were taught at the highest level using the latest methods by certified teachers from the NGO “German Youth of Zakarpattia” (headed by Yuliia Taips), Vitaliia Kabatsii and Oksana Lizanets, and teachers from the “German House” in Mukachevo (headed by Vitaliia Kabatsii). In a light and relaxed manner, the daily lessons covered serious topics related to the national identity of Germany as one of the EU countries, such as the administrative and territorial structure, cuisine, music, traditions, etc.
The participants visited the exhibition “Volyn and North Rhine-Westphalia: Bridges from the Past to the Present”, where they learnt a lot about the history of the German people’s migration to other lands. The participants also joined master classes in drawing, theatre, music, and met interesting people, ethnic Germans who actively promote Ukrainian culture in the world, including the founder of the Marcipanka.ua brand Nataliia Rybar, known in many countries, who has created wonderful scarves that symbolically represent different cities of Ukraine and the nature of Transcarpathia. By the way, the Poltava shawl is also in her collection and is popular among those wishing to buy national clothes.
At the end of the project, the participants demonstrated their acting skills by presenting fairy tales in German. Teachers and scientists from different countries actively completed the tasks set, exploring the peculiarities of German culture with great interest.
“With the rapid development of society, there is a growing need to learn foreign languages, which will allow us to integrate into the European language space faster and more productively. Such projects give me the opportunity to deepen my knowledge by learning new cognitive information in a non-standard game form and motivate me to acquire useful professional competences that I will definitely use in my future professional activity,” – commented Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Department of Germanic Philology and Translation of Poltava Polytechnic Tetiana Kushnirova.
The project participant expresses her sincere gratitude to the head of the “International Society of Germans of Ukraine – Wiedergeburt” Volodymyr Pinkovskyi and the leaders of the NGO “German Youth of Zakarpattia” Yuliia Taips, the NGO “Poltava Society of Germans Wiedergeburt” Vladyslav Kushnirov, the teachers Vitaliia Kabatsii, Oksana Lizanets and other speakers for the excellent organisation and meaningful content of the project.
It should be recalled that recently a representative of Poltava Polytechnic took part in an Erasmus+ training in Romania, the university will receive funding for a project dedicated to supporting the mental health of war-affected citizens, and an architecture student became a participant of the Summer School of Urban Planning and Design in Lübeck.
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National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”
