James Cook Languages to Ukraine

How do we help?

1. Phrase Books

At the suggestion of one of our teachers, who has been hosting Ukrainian refugees, we have created Czech-Ukrainian phrase books to make basic communication easier. All of the phrase books, their Ukrainian-Czech versions and the booklets Basic Phrases and At School are available via the following link: https://bit.ly/cz_uk_slovnik.

Our phrase books were shared by the Czech Ministry of Education as a part of their methodology recommendations under the section Education of Ukrainian children, in the part called How To Deal with Language Barriers. We printed hundreds of copies for the Municipal Library, Congress Centre, Šatník Praha, and Prague main train station. They were picked by Zdravotní klauni (Hospital Clowns). In short, they were sent to schools and volunteers across the whole Czech Republic.

Thanks to social media, our phrase books found their way as far as to Slovakia - so we used our Slovak colleagues’ knowledge and prepared both Slovak-Ukrainian and Ukrainian-Slovak versions: https://bit.ly/sk_uk_slovnik. They will be shared on the web page of the Slovakian Institute of Education.

2. Applications

We were contacted by the expert volunteers from Česko.Digital who, based on our vocabulary lists, created a web application called Movapp. They are continuing to develop it further and are planning to incorporate exercises. They also plan to create a mobile app with an offline mode for a wider spread and easier usage of the material.

3. Mind-maps

Kreativní slovník reached out to us and would like to transform our vocabulary lists to mind maps. We created all various versions of the lists - there will be a Czech, Ukrainian, Slovak, English, German, and Polish versions. If you’re interested in what it will all look like, take a look at this draft.

4. Crash courses of “Czech for Ukrainians”

Starting on 15th March we scheduled a series of 23 half-day courses of Czech for foreigners. The dates were fully booked within the first two days, so we scheduled new courses for April. Each course lasts 3×60 mins and leads the students through their first steps in the world of the Czech language by showing them the main principles of the language. You can find more information and the links to sign up on the web page of EDUA Group.

Each student of the crash course received a license for Utalk for free for themselves and their family members. In case the students need to attend a course with their young child(ren), we are ready to take care of them; there are games prepared in the children’s room kindly lent to us by Albi.

5. Hiring teachers from Ukraine

We got in touch with the Academic Director from the London School of English in Kyiv who recommended us as an employer of highly qualified teachers fleeing from Ukraine because of the war. We are trying to find ways of legally starting cooperation with them as well as Ukrainian teachers who are already in the Czech Republic.

6. Language courses of Czech for foreigners

We have long experience in teaching Czech for foreigners to students of various nationalities. We will gladly provide your company with comprehensive language services to meet your requirements. We can prepare a tailor-made syllabus for students (currently for Ukrainian speakers, for example) and adapt it to specific professional branches and job positions.