The Terre des hommes Foundation Romania launched on February 28, in Bucharest, a unique set of bilingual manuals and workbooks for Ukrainian children and teenagers learning Romanian.
As we have been working in support of Ukrainian children and their families for the past two years, we wanted to accompany them in the process of learning Romanian, so we created seven bilingual textbooks and exercise books. They contain the transliteration of Romanian texts with Cyrillic letters, to help with pronunciation. They can be used for individual study, for learning the Romanian language without a teacher, but also in the classroom, by teachers who speak both languages.
Romania registers, according to the data of the Ministry of Education, approximately 34,000 Ukrainian children in the education system. Almost 22,000 of them are only attending (without understanding). Thus, Ukrainian children spend many hours in classes taught in Romanian, without being able to communicate easily with their peers or teachers. Our textbooks and workbooks support them, but they are also useful in the daily life of refugee children (and adults) – at the playground, on the street, on the bus, at the store.
Terre des hommes Romania has chosen authors who, in the last two years, have gained experience teaching the Romanian language to Ukrainian children and students. The textbooks have been tested in the classroom by the authors and prioritize notions that are very useful for learning a foreign language, without including too many grammar notions. They also contain space that allows practicing writing, but also drawings or interactive activities that encourage play and make learning easier.
"We want the learning experience to be attractive and the progress very fast, so that the children assimilate the Romanian language and can enroll in the education system as soon as possible. Most Ukrainian children also participate in the online Ukrainian education system. The number of hours attended is noticeably higher than normal. In addition, they have to learn an unfamiliar foreign language. We try to stand by them", says Rodica Novac, Senior Protection Officer at the Terre des hommes Romania Foundation and coordinator of the project for these educational resources.
UNHCR and Swiss Solidarity have financed the initiative.
The handbooks can be downloaded here https://tdh.ro/en/romanian-language-handbooks-ukrainian-teenagers-and-children
