Seminars

From 10 to 13 March 2011, Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia has successfully hosted the seminar which took place in the framework of the project "Sputnik", entitled "The Russian language as a way to succeed in business."

The seminar was attended by delegations from France, Britain, Spain, the Netherlands and Cyprus. There were in total 26 participants.

Marina Bilash, the host of the event, organized a meeting of participants in the school office Lingvarus and the conference hall- Europe.

The seminar program included:

• a presentation of the new manual, "Business trip"
• lessons for students (level 2) following the new manual developped by the Slovenian partner;
• a roundtable on the products elaborated by each partner and interim survey on tehir readiness ;
• a cultural program.

The seminar was opened by the Director of the language school "Lingvarus" Ms. Bilash, who spoke about the specificities of teaching the Russian language for adults in Slovenia.

Lessons usually take place at the school’s office as well as at the companies offices. One of the specificities of the school is the tight cooperation with huge companies. Lingvarus school, during its existence period, developped a program aimed at teaching business Russian language. It is a 5 levels program with specific literature for each level

The task of Lingvarus task within the project "Sputnik" was the elaboration of materials for business Russian language learning at advanced level. In the development of materials involved both teachers and students. The manuel has been tested and approved during lessons. Each partner received a copy of the manual.

During the seminar, the Slovenian partners presented a website dedicated to theRussian language online learning, which has been developed by teachers of the school throughout the last year.

Teachers Dmitiry Larikov and Corina Marian organized an international lesson for learners using the handbook "Business Trip".

During the "round table" Mr. Igor Zhukovsky, the project coordinator, reported on the current state of play of the project and the progress made. Ms. Antonina Zhukovskaya surveyed the partners about the readinness of the final product. The overall result was 75 to 90%. The final product will be presented by the partners from UK, Spain and France during the seminar in Barcelona.

Partners from Cyprus Drozdetskaya E. and S. Kirilova presented 3 options of the final product: a dialogue from a movie, played out scenes and sounded dialogues. Partners suggested to use dialogues from already existing methods. It was decided to develop new thematic dialogues with their subsequent dubbing. Presentation of the materials will be held in Cyprus in June.

Vladimir Gusev, invited everyone to the next meeting to be held in Barcelona from 19 to 22 May 2011. During the seminar it is scheduled to consider the final format of the textbook for Russian learning "Sputnik", which will be the result of the two-year work.

In the evening, the partners organised a reception of in a cafe symbolically called Sputnik with the participation of the representatives from the Grundtvig National Agency of Slovenia.

The seminar finished by a cultural visit to the lake, the castle and St. Mary's Church (1185) in Bled. The dinner took place in a typical Slovenian restaurant with traditional cuisine and friendly atmosphere.