Ridna Shkola Workshop

Workshop participants gather for a group photo.

On February 16 & 17^th, 2013, a teachers’ workshop was held in Montreal titled “Ways to enhance the learning process. Practical application of the most effective methods to encourage students in the classroom and approaches to improve learning”. Ukrainian Credit Union Limited was proud to sponsor this event.

The program was organized by the Ridna Shkola Initiatives Committee of the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada in conjunction with the Ukrainian Language Education Centre at the University of Alberta.

Participants of the workshop included Ukrainian language teachers who are part of the UNF Ridna Shkola program in Toronto, teachers of the A. Sheptytsky Ukrainian Saturday School in Montreal, and educators from Edmonton and guests.

Class materials, teaching methods and classroom challenges when the knowledge of Ukrainian varies from student to student were only some of the topics covered.  Presentations by Dr. Olenka Bilash, Professor, Department of Secondary Education, and Coordinator of Second Languages and International Education at the University of Alberta and Melody Kostiuk, Consultant, International Languages, Support for Staff and Students, Literacy and Assessment at the Institute for Innovation in Second Language Education, Edmonton, were very informative and engaging as teachers took on the role of student, playing interactive reading and writing games together in order to get a hands-on feel for these creative methods of learning for children. 

The sessions included practical fragments of the lessons conducted by Olenka Bilash, Edmonton, and Nataliya Kulyasa, Toronto. Tanya Onyschuk, Toronto, presented innovative approaches to purposeful reading and reading different types of texts in the Ukrainian language where the participants had an opportunity to familiarize themselves with various reading materials for different age groups. New learning materials for teaching Ukrainian as a foreign language from MIOK, Lviv, were presented by Yevgeniya Petrova, Toronto.   

The success of the event was apparent through the enthusiastic exchange of emails and telephone numbers among participants following Sunday's closing lunch in order to expand upon the additional knowledge and new ideas acquired during the 2 days. 

You can see more photos of the event on our Facebook page in the Ridna Shkola Workshop album