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Editor's Note: In Part I of "Maintaining the Ukrainian Language in the Diaspora", published in the September 2000 issue of Our Life, Professor Sanko provided an overview of the history of Ukrainian schools in the USA and Canada, followed by a detailed description of the curriculum and positive learning environment created by teachers and admin istrators of Saint Volodymyr Cathedral Saturday School in Parma, Ohio. In Part II, the author explores teachers' use of audio-visual resources, music, additional print and non-print educational tools. She also offers some insights into the future of Ukrainian schools and their important mission. MAINTAINING THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE IN THE DIASPORA by Helene Turkewicz-Sanko PART II Audio-visual materials help teachers in the development of oral skills. There are many good op tions. First, the colorfully illustrated Ukrainian Chil dren's calendar (Kalendar Ukraiunskoyi Dytyny), indi cates the change of seasons as well as Ukrainian com memorative days. Each month presents proverbs, rid dles, rebuses, and short poems. A video program de veloped in Canada, U Titky Kvitky, offers ten different programs which provide basic vocabulary to express feelings such as joy, fear, sadness, love, loss and the like. Another series of videos focuses on traditional folk tales; children and animals are portrayed wearing national costumes. From Ukraine, video cartoons, such as the series of the three Cossacks (Kozaky), which portray Ukraine's destiny throughout the ages and Ukrainian culture in a very humorous manner, are available. Another humorous video cartoon, Enejida, reproduces the adventures of Kozak Enei. This film is based on the literary work by Ivan Kotl'arevski, which in addition to being the cornerstone of modem Ukrain ian literature, is itself an adaptation of Virgil's Aeneid. The latest innovation for the year 2000 deals with a senior class project. It consists of developing a portfolio of educational resources to be used in stu dents' future homes when they themselves become parents, or to be used in a preschool and first grade setting if they become teachers in a community ethnic school. It is a fact that every graduating student is called to join the ranks of the next generation of ethnic school teachers. The materials they develop are theirs to keep. Materials can be as simple as a series of lami nated flash cards to teach vocabulary as well as the Cyrillic alphabet, but they can also be more elaborated as in the case of an embroidered sampler with signifi cant unmistakably Ukrainian motifs. The portfolio tends to be like a directory of resources organized alphabetically. For instance, under В for Books, the portfolio calls for the acquisition of the following essential books: 1. From Canada: Ukrains'ke Doshk.il'a by Jaroslav Chumak (Toronto, 1983); cover illustration of a mother teaching her son by Ukrainian-Canadian art ist William Kurelek. 2. From the USA: Books illustrated by Yaro slava, such as The Mitten, How a Shirt Grew in the Field, and A Mitten for a Kitten. 3. From the USA: Ukrainian Folk Tales by Marie Halun Bloch and illustrated by J. Hnizdovsky. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc. (1964). 4. From Ukraine: Ukrains'kyi Dyt'atchyj Folk lore. Kyiv: Vydavnytstvo Akademii Nauk (1962). 5. From Ukraine: Dva Pivnyky/Two Chante- cleers, a bilingual book. Kyiv: Veselka Publishers (1975). These books become the basic reference mate rials from which to create new ones, because creativity is an essential quality required of every good teacher. The preparation of a lesson plan is an art in itself. As an example, let me present the work of a young teacher from Rochester, New York, Tanya Kosc, a graduate student in Optics who dedicates her Satur days to Ridna Shkola. Last summer in a geography book published in Ukraine, she found a map showing the excavation sites of Scythian mounds. She repro duced it along with the illustrations of gold artifacts, some of which represented animals who had lived in the ancestral steppes. She then organized a lesson which incorporated not only geography and history, but also language acquisition. She created flash cards and used the animal illustrations to teach the names of animals in Ukrainian. Tanya Kosc is American bom; she graduated from the Ridna Shkola in Parma, Ohio. In what follows, ethnic teachers will find the most recent materials developed in Ukraine as well as in Canada: “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЖОВТЕНЬ 2000 13
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