Training of teachers and education organizers at Mesrop Mashtots Sunday School in Odessa
August 3, 2020
Within the framework of the memorandum of cooperation signed between the Armenian community of Odessa and the International Scientific-Educational Center of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, two-week training courses started at Mesrop Mashtots Sunday School in Odessa on July 20, 2020. Community teachers and organizers of education participated in the professional training course "Principles and Criteria for Teaching Armenian as a Second Language" organized by the Chair of Linguistics of the ISEC NAS RA (30 hours, 1 credit). The course was conducted by the Head of the Chair of Linguistics, M. Sargsyan.
Within the framework of the training, the participants got acquainted with the peculiarities of teaching Armenological subjects in the Diaspora, the current educational, subject-cultural programs, educational materials, methods and resources. M. Sargsyan introduced the participants to the problems related to the use of mother tongues in a bilingual environment, the methods of working with different generations of the language community, the principles of working with students with different levels of language proficiency.
“Training is an integral part of professional and personal growth. We must move in line with the demands of the time, be flexible and ready for new challenges. And of course this is not possible without training. It is very welcome that the Armenian community of Odessa initiated this project. I hope this will be a contagious, successful example for Armenian communities in other communities, in the Diaspora. The beginning of cooperation was quite promising in honor of Tigran Harutyunyan, the head of the Armenian community of Odessa and Anna Gvorgyan, the head of the Odessa Cultural Center, the chairwoman of the Armenian Women’s Committee of Ukraine. The willingness and aspirations of the school and teachers are simply admirable. Teachers are well-trained and experienced professionals, and the most important thing is that they are zealous for their work, ready for new cooperation, application of new methods, improvement of their work style, enrichment of knowledge, experience, keeping, preserving, transferring and developing national Armenian, away from homeland” said M. Sargsyan.
The trainings were held according to the plan-schedule, the chosen format allowed the participants to be not passive listeners, but to participate in active discussions, to present the positive-negative problems in their practice, to share their experience with others. During the last week, the participants did some practical work. Head of the Chair of Linguistics of the ISEC NAS RA M. Sargsyan along with the participants discussed the examples of the best and worst classes, pros and cons of the educational process in a multilingual environment, got acquainted with the teaching aids, online resources, the peculiarities of Sunday and Saturday school curricula, analyzed the existing problems, their reasons, and offered solutions. Due to the situation in the country, as well as the spatial barrier, some teachers participated in the training at a distance. The participants who successfully passed the training courses received a certificate from the Chair of Linguistics of the ISEC NAS RA.
GALLERY
