Associate professors of the Department of English Philology, Vice-Deans of the Faculty Natalia Pyliachyk, and Natalia Ivanotchak completed an international internship in Estonia (October 25-29, 2021) within the #MultiEd project (“Development of the capacity to train foreign language teachers on Ukraine’s path to multilingual education and European integration”), funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union.
During the training, the university teachers visited three cities in Estonia: Tallinn, Tartu, and Narva, observing the implementation of content and language integrated teaching in educational institutions. The visit began with a discussion of the features of multilingual education in Estonia with the Director of the Estonian Language Foundation in Tallinn Irene Käosaar. The teachers of the department had a unique opportunity not only to observe the consistent use of CLIL-methodology in educational institutions of different levels of education: from kindergarten (Narva Lasteaed Tareke) to university (Narva College of the University of Tartu) but also to compare approaches to the implementation of content and language integrated learning in three gymnasiums (Tallinna Pae Gümnaasium, Tartu Aleksander Puškini Kool, Narva Vanalinna Riigikool).
The highlight of the visit was the participation in the 8th international conference “Trends and Issues in CLIL and ELT”, where the speakers (Pille Põiklik, Phil Ball, Galina Maslova, Enn Veldi, Hans-Werner Huneke, Sue Garton, Elisabeth Wielander, Dario Luis Banegas, Jacqueline Hadel Jackie Hadel, Jennifer Uhler Relo Jenn) discussed the benefits and challenges of using the CLIL methodology and shared experiences of its implementation in different countries.
We express our sincere gratitude to the Erasmus+ team, Irene Käosaar, Egle Rummel da Costa Isabella Riitsaar, Alina Braziulene, Tatjana Kodas, Jelena Konovalova, Tatjana Stepanova, Piret Kärtner, Denis Larchenko, project manager Alesia Golovko, and project managers from the Precarpathian National University Liubov Ziniuk and Natalia Goshylyk for the opportunity to get the unique experience observing the implementation of content and language integrated learning in Estonia and their comprehensive organizational support.
(Translated from Ukrainian by Khrystyna Uhreniuk)