Tetiana Kibalnikova z CJV LF součástí CercleS týmu školitelek nového programu / Tetiana Kibalnikova from CJV MED is a CercleS trainer for a new programme

Jako členové CercleS (The European Confederation of Language Centres in Higher Education) jsme rádi, že můžeme sdílet inspirativní výsledek spolupráce naší lektorky Tetiany Kibalnikové, která spolu s kolegyněmi ze Švýcarska, Španělska, Polska a Ukrajiny stojí za vznikem nového programu Boost Your Teaching Skills. Tento roční online kurz bude sloužit k rozvoji učitelských dovedností. Tetiana s námi sdílela, jak taková aktivita vznikla a co ji ještě v rámci kurzu čeká.

As members of CercleS (The European Confederation of Language Centres in Higher Education), we are pleased to share the inspiring result of the collaboration of our lecturer Tetiana Kibalnikova, who, together with colleagues from Switzerland, Spain, Poland and Ukraine, is behind the creation of the new Boost Your Teaching Skills programme. This one-year online course will serve to develop teaching skills. Tetiana shared with us how such a collaboration came about and what else awaits her within the framework of the training sessions.

How did you get involved in the Boost Your Language Skills programme?
My journey with the project began at the CercleS conference in Porto in September 2022 where I was honoured to be invited by the CercleS management and which was made possible thanks to the grant provided by the CASALC committee. At the conference, I met Sabina Schaffner, the then President of CercleS, and other inspiring people who were genuinely committed to supporting Ukrainian teachers. Since then, we have kept in touch and had a few zoom meetings. We didn’t come up with the idea of a training project at once. The original idea was to submit a proposal on language teaching in higher education under the ECML program. By summer 2023, we had created a project group consisting of Sabina Schaffner (University of Zurich, Switzerland / CercleS), Julia Zabala Delgado (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain), Barbara Sawicka (Poznan University of Technology, Poland), Marta Demchyshyn (UCU, Lviv, Ukraine) and me. Later, we revised the project concept and transformed it into an online training course for early career teachers who would like to enhance their teaching experience. The name of our project reflects its underlying goal: “Boost your language teaching skills”. I am happy to be part of this initiative.

What did the preparation entail? Can you share any interesting memories from the collaborative process?
We created the first draft of our project via a number of zoom sessions, but we needed a face-to-face meeting to finalize the project proposal. Julia Zabala Delgado kindly invited us to Valencia, and it was the most memorable part of the project preparation process. We had two very productive days when we could outline the goals, the content and the outcomes of the core modules. I enjoyed working in a team with these incredible people. The evenings were absolutely unforgettable: we were discovering Spain with its beautiful sights and food specialties like horchata and tapas. Julia was our genial and welcoming host.

What are you looking forward to the most?
It is my first experience with the project of this scale. So, I’m excited to see it in action. I’m looking forward to meeting colleagues from across Europe who are eager to peer exchange, and I hope to see Ukrainian teachers too among the participants of this event.