The crisis didn’t stop joint classes from happening in the secondary schools in the City of Skopje. Secondary school students from ASUC “Boro Petrushevski”, SUGS “Dimitar Vlahov” and SGGUGS “Zdravko Cvetkovski”, which study in different languages of instruction, continued their joint activities through digital platforms together with their teachers. These classes are a great opportunity for youth from different ethnic backgrounds to collaborate and hang out while learning about different subjects.
The students worked on various interesting activities. Pairs of teachers from ASUC “Boro Petrushevski” adapted the curriculum to digital tools, showing their students how to utilize them. So, technical drawing with the software CAD (Computer-Aided Design) for the machine and traffic group became even more interesting and all students joined and made the drawings at the same time. During another joint class in the English language, they enriched their vocabulary and wrote essays on healthy food and professional occupations, which they then shared with their teachers and analyzed through digital communication platforms.
How to do pedicure the right way? During the Practical classes meant for the department of hand and foot care estheticians and Practical classes for cosmetics technicians, the students from SUGS “Dimitar Vlahov” revised what they have learned on the two languages of instruction and discussed about pedicure and feet massages with their teachers.
Even though sports games have been postponed due to the COVID-19 crisis, the students watched short clips from the League of Champions finale in 2019 together during the class in Sport and sports activities. They analyzed the statistics and factors that led to one team winning and the other losing the game while hanging out and learning more new words in the two languages of instruction.
Although the subjects in which joint curricular classes are organized in SGGUGS “Zdravko Cvetkovski” incorporate more fieldwork, the pairs of teachers that teach Practical classes in the department of architecture managed to find a few interesting ways for implementing the joint classes at a distance. They communicated with the students from both groups online and with the help of social media and digital communication platforms assigned tasks that the students solved together and presented in front of their teachers.
The new ways for distance learning kept bringing youth that studies in different languages of instruction together and deepening their mutual collaboration.
This activity is part of the Youth Ethnic Integration Project, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
This article is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents are the responsibility of MCEC and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) or the United States Government.
