Education Bulgaria Project #41083

Bulgarian as a second language

by Teach For Bulgaria/Zaedno v chas

Project Report | Apr 25, 2023
Thank you for your support for BSL

By Denitza Manova | Development and Fundraising Specialist

Dear supporters,

Thank you for your support for the Bulgarian as a second language project!

Together we have achieved so much over the past few years.

Together with our partner NGO EducArt we developed several materials for students whose mother language is different from Bulgarian. First, we developed a Book for students to help them learn the alphabet. We sent 10,000 physical copies of it to education professionals across the country and it is available to download at the BSL page (linked below) at prepodavame.bg where it has 4,000 downloads. We also created a Tactile letters handbook, a Handbook with instructions for teachers, a Vocabulary book for students in primary school, and an Illustrated stories book to explain key mathematical concepts.

We also developed an online course for teachers on How to teach children whose mother tongue is different from Bulgarian that is available to educators on the prepodavame.bg platform (linked below).

Across our two programs - Model Schools and A New Way to Teaching - we have directly trained 50 teachers to be able to provide better support to bilingual students. Each of the four schools we trained as part of the Model School program has also developed an individual strategy for language support.

As we continue evolving our programs and their content, the final BSL-specific training modules took place this spring, so we will close the BSL project on GlobalGiving. Our partners from EducArt will continue developing materials to support bilingual students and we will continue disseminating them to educators through prepodavame.bg

Your recurring donations will be automatically transferred to the Help 90,000 Bulgarian students thrive project and we hope that you will choose to continue your support for our work.

With gratitude,
The Teach For Bulgaria team

Links:

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Jan 27, 2023
Teachers and Experts Share Best Practices

By Denitza Manova | Development and Fundraising Specialist

Dear supporters,

Happy New Year! May 2023 bring you happiness, peace, and prosperity!

Our work on the "Bulgarian as a Second Language" project has continued in the past three months, and we have some exciting news to share.

In December, we hosted a discussion aimed at sharing best practices in empowering students whose mother tongue is not Bulgarian to learn effectively and confidently. During the discussion, the over 50 participants and five guest experts shared their experiences and best practices on topics such as:

What are the specific needs of linguistic minority students
What specialized educational resources exist that can be of help to teachers and students for learning Bulgarian and for overall language support across the various subjects
What are the language challenges facing students and their teachers – what does academic research and field experience tell us?
What are the possible solutions and follow-up actions on the part of state institutions, schools, and individual teachers

According to the feedback given by some of the participants after the event, the discussion provided them with valuable insight into their peers' approach to working with bilingual students. Others stated that while there is still work needed to be done in order for those students to unlock their potential, sharing different perspectives on the topic has been very useful to them.

We also hosted a "Bulgarian as a Second Language" training session in Silistra with 60 teachers in attendance. The attendees were a mix of primary and junior high teachers, allowing for the teaching methods learned in the training to be carried throughout the different stages of education. The feedback from this training was highly positive, with participants rating the usefulness of the course 4.8/5 and 9.1/10 in the likelihood they would recommend the course to colleagues.

Thank you for supporting us in this journey and for being an active part in achieving positive change for all students for whom Bulgarian is not a mother tongue.

With gratitude,

The Teach For Bulgaria team

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Sep 30, 2022
5000 books for bilingual students are on their way

By Tsvetelina Angelova | Fundraising and Developments Senior Specialist

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