euskalkultura.eus

Barcelona, Catalonia.  Barcelona’s Euskal Etxea was the site of the meeting of Basque teachers in European Basque clubs in which they not only did practical training work but also laid the foundation for the creation of a communications network to facilitate collaboration between the different clubs.  There were 15 teachers present from Basque clubs in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Paris and Berlin who were joined by the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Official Language School of the city.  Also present was Kinku Zinkunegi of HABE and joining the group on the second day was HABE’s director Iñaki Uribe.

The meeting had two parts.  The first part consisted of teachers exchanging their experiences and with those with more experience, such as those from Madrid, Barcelona and Paris, offering their advice and ideas to their more junior colleagues.  Among the newer Basque programs, it is worth noting that of the Euskaltzaleok in Valencia. Despite it being a new program it already has 30 students enrolled.  “Four teachers from Euskaltzaleok came to the meeting, three of which having learned Basque at the same center,” Kinku Zinkunegi told EuskalKultura.com.

Thematic meetings

The second part of the meeting dealt with more practical matters proposed by the teachers themselves, such as vocabulary, enriching the classes, but according to the participants there wasn’t enough time to talk about each topic in depth.  This then promoted the idea of having thematic meetings in the future that would treat only one area at a time. 

In the same way, the teachers proposed that the meeting be moved up from March to October to coincide with the beginning of the course, which would also make it more useful for new teachers.  Paris’s Euskal Etxea offered to host the next meeting to be held on October 19-21, 2013.

Finally, professors asked for the creation of a permanent communications network that would allow sharing information, documents and experiences.  HABE representatives promised to look into the possibilities of such a network.