Teachers of Hungarian, who teach abroad consulted last week in a conference that was organised by Debrecen Summer School.
Péter Szaffkó, head of Debrecen Summer School said that the purpose of the conference was to give a forum to those colleagues who have no other opportunity to discuss their experiences, their thoughts about teaching Hungarian. The invitations were spent on purpose, using the University’s system of connections; not only those Hungarian communities received them who live abroad but they were also sent to cultural institutions, schools, departments of universities and Hungarian embassies. This is the reason that many of the attendants are former students of Summer School, who by now teach Hungarian in their own home country.
The event was not about to compete with scientific conferences, that is why the syllabus was made by the attendants themselves; the lectures were announced on the score of the interest and wishes of the entrants. One of the main lecturers was Evelyn Montano from Brazil, who is a leader teacher of the Hungarian community in Sao Paolo. The other one was Tiborc Farkas, one of the most recognized figures of European Hungarian language teaching. The principle of the organizers was to compile the contents on the basis of the claims; the purpose was to achieve practicality, sharing of experiences, and last but not least to get to know each other.
What is more, Debrecen Summer School would have liked to initiate the participants to its own “secrets of workshop”; they had opportunity to visit lectures and be part of the leisure time activities of the night.
This event was the first of its kind, the teachers are waiting for the next one ardently. A proposal has been made considering the thematic: postgraduate courses and discussion of problems of methodology could be in the centre of the next conference. Another reason for them to come again is their unified opinion that the Hungarian “image”, culture needs some help from the government to be spread. This “provision” was given by Debrecen Summer School, for which the participants are grateful.
Source: unideb.hu
