The course of Latvian language learning taking place within the framework of the project “Support Actions for Persons under International Protection II” in July is continued by the seventh group in which since May 23 are studying persons under international protection from seven countries. Project manager Zanda Rudene notes that the group includes representatives of the countries which speak various languages, so the teacher of the Latvian language has to be very creative, and the participants of the group have to be quick-witted for all to be able to understand each other. “The teacher uses various methods and means to teach the language better, the students like it. The group is active, willingly participates, and the participants of the study course themselves are helpful towards their group mates”.
Evaluating the success of her students, the teacher of the Latvian language Lolita Zilberte says that success of each group is proportional to the invested work. "It should be noted that Latvian is learned by people from various countries, and not always is there an intermediary language. The students happily learn the topics which are useful in their practical life. Participants of the learning very gladly participate in role play, so they can better learn the new vocabulary. A favourable attitude reigns in classes; they are used to praise their group mates.” She notes that the knowledge level of the language is very low at first because the people have recently arrived and almost nowhere have heard the Latvian language before. “Each person comes with their learning experience, with their attitude towards work, with their behavioural culture and much else. Yet they all are united by one purpose – a desire to learn the Latvian. The main aspect impacting the result the interest shown by each student. If the goal is set to remain in Latvia, these students learn the first knowledge faster and more successfully.” Ms Zilberte underlines that the best result is achieved by families, as well as people who have made friends. Sometimes the students use electronic study aids as well for a more successful learning of the language, as well as by sharing their study experience with their relatives and friends who are in other countries. “To each teacher the words of a student: Thank you for the class! We really liked it! We love Latvia! - is a true incentive to forget all difficulties and provides an inspiration to teach, look for new tasks and learning approach to each individually.”
It is planned that as of July 16 a new group will begin the course of the Latvian language.
In order to enable to get knowledge and skills of Latvian necessary for work and everyday life, as well as develops main language skills, the course of Latvian is implemented within the scope of the project “Support Activities for Persons Under International Protection II”. The courses are available in Riga and in CAS Mucenieki (for the persons accommodated there).
From January 2018 to this moment Latvian language courses have been attended by 92 persons (in six groups) all in all, 70 of these people have been issued a certificate on completion of the courses. There were persons from 26 countries among the participants of Latvian language courses.
Until June this year nine groups — 142 persons in total — have taken the integration training course about Latvia. 122 participants were issued certificates confirming that they have completed the course. Persons under international protection from 28 countries were among the participants. Communication with the participants of training groups was ensured by skilled interpreters or speakers of Dari, Turkish, Tigrinya, Arabic, Urdu, Georgian, French, Bengali, Spanish, Tamil languages. This service is provided by the “Information Centre for Newcomers”. English and Russian were used as intermediary languages.
Ms Rudene points out that currently an interpreter or an expert of Mongolian is actively searched for the tenth integration study course group to begin their studies. This group would include persons under international protection from Mongolia.
The Support Actions for Persons under International Protection II project is implemented with the support from the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and co-financed by the European Union. Grant Agreement No. PMIF/9/2017/2/01/