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Today’s regional roundup: EU budget talks; Crimean TV under pressure; Washington plays nuclear war; changes to Kazakh rallies; and a shocking Czech documentary.
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TOL’s regional news roundup: effective protests in Kyrgyzstan; intolerance in Poland; innovation in Estonia; WWII ceremonies pose RSVP conundrum; and Borissov’s castle in Spain.
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This paper provides an overview of current responses to fake news and digital disinformation inside and outside the EU, and assesses the advantages and disadvantages of each solution. Four approaches emerge: (1) self-regulation (i.e. actions undertaken on a voluntary basis by the digital platforms); (2) co-regulation (i.e. cooperation framework between EU-level and national-level authorities, the internet platform companies, media organizations, researchers, and other stakeholders); (3) direct regulation (i.e. legal measures & sanctions); and (4) audience-centred solutions (i.e. factchecking and media literacy). We argue in favour of the co-regulation approach, while drawing attention to some current challenges in the response against disinformation. Furthermore, we need to go beyond the understanding of disinformation as an information/ truth fraud, and draw additional measures to reflect the particular understanding of disinformation as a form of users’ engagement fraud.
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This article explores the challenges and opportunities of the Europeanization processes taking place in post-Maidan Ukraine and post-Velvet Revolution Armenia. It argues that despite the constraining effects of “competing governance provider” Russia, the interests, perceptions and preferences of the domestic elites are critical to the implementation of the EU policies in Ukraine and Armenia. Thus, it offers a more dynamic structure- agency interplay approach to account for the dynamics of Europeanization in the EU-Russia contested neighbourhood. The article concludes that the domestic change in Ukraine has been positively correlated with its Europeanization, while Armenia has been showing positive signs of responsiveness towards the European policies since the 2018 “Velvet Revolution.” The article enquires into integration without membership dynamics between the EU and Eastern neighbours, as well as into the actorness of the EU in post-revolution state-building in Ukraine and Armenia.
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The first part of the paper presents a brief glimpse into the history of teaching Polish as a Foreign Language at universities worldwide. Activities of Bristol Association of Polish and Foreign Teachers of Polish Culture and Polish as a Second Language are also mentioned, as well as its role in offering methodological help for teachers and professors of Polish overseas. The paper offers also a presentation of the current model of teaching Polish abroad coordinated since 2017 by the Polish state agency NAWA. The second part of the paper deals with an overview of university centers teaching Polish in Slovakia. The author focuses mainly on the specifics of Polish education program at the Department of Slavonic Languages, Faculty of Arts at the Comenius University in Bratislava, from the synchronic and diachronic point of view. At the end of the paper, some relevant information about teaching Polish at university centers in Bulgaria is mentioned from the comparative, current perspective.
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The article discusses one of the linguo-didactologic goals oriented to the teaching of Old Bulgarian (Slavonic) as the establishing of systematic relations between diachrony and synchrony. Concrete example are the uses of the preposition except in a translated juridical text from 1262, some of which overlap with the contemporary use of the preposition except in complex conjunctions appropriated to the administrative style. The main conclusion concerns the localization character of except in texts and manuscripts of Southern, or Balkan Slavic origin. The Preslav Literary School plays a definitive role for its imposing in the literary language. The unchangeable prepositional functions prove the continuity between the Medieval and the Modern Bulgarian language.
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The main aim of the article is to discuss the relationship between the three key areas related to the tasks of Bulgarian language teaching. Linguistic knowledge is the traditional core of teaching Bulgarian at school. The knowledge of language units and rules is the basis upon which the communicative skills to apply them in various situations are developed. Functional literacy is related to the transition from pattern drills and “artificial” textbook’s materials to real cases from different functional areas.
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In the current conditions of development of preschool education in Ukraine, focused on the world and European educational standards, the professional quality of heads of preschool education such as managerial creativity is of great importance, updating of which in management activity will make it possible to make effective, non-standard managerial decisions, ensure the work of preschool educational institutions in the regime of development, not functioning and condition the high quality of preschool education and successful development of every child of preschool age. However, in the practice of local preschool education, there is a shortage of managerial creativity among the heads of preschool education. Therefore, the study of peculiarities of the development of this quality among future heads is the aim of our research that will help to develop and use a system for the development of managerial creativity in the context of university education and independent student activity.
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The new strategies for teaching and learning point to the investigation and the deployment of workable learning methods and scenarios for better understanding of the learning content and engage learners in more active participation during the perceiving of knowledge. Good educational results are achieved by storytelling, understanding-by-design, serious educational games, game components, learning-by-authoring, and/or any combinations of them, when the specific learner’s needs and wishes are kept in mind and different digital resources (viz. cultural, historical, encyclopedic, etc.) are contextually used for the target learning purposes. This paper presents some conceptual models for the development of online learning games in the cultural heritage field.
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This article is aimed at exploring the issues of support for children and young people with severe disabilities in residential services in Bulgaria. A brief analysis of the types of support is proposed, based on the legal framework and the research data. Results from the experimental interaction are presented, including a Program for group work in the services under review. Given the specifics of the target group, the method used to register results is direct observation. The “initiative in activities” and “initiative in communication” indicators are observed. The main conclusions are: increase in the initiative for the group as a whole is observed; reduction of the communication initiative for the majority of participants.
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The job of a manager dealing with young specialists, kindergarten teachers, seen as a significant part of the management of human resources as well as strategic management, gives the manager challenges which are considered a risk and precaution for the attractive image of the kindergarten. The hereby presented regional study attempts at encompassing the specific and complex management by means of three categories which are essential for it – subjects – directors, young teachers and graduated unemployed teachers. It is using the SWOT-analysis of the results of the survey that the managerial estimate upon the contribution of young specialists to the mission of teachers is seen. The focus group consists of ten directors – managers and realizes the simultaneous method of Brainstorming to generate new ideas to attract qualified young specialists. An interview and work in the focus group have been realized in the course of a survey on the self-assessment of sixteen young teachers concerning their “start” as educators and relating to two problems - recruitment and selection of teachers. An official survey of the Employment Agency and a survey among nine graduated unemployed young teachers of children who have completed their education during the last four years (2011 – 2014) analyze the potential of a “reserve” of pedagogical staff.
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Musical education has undoubted influence in the process of the overall formation of the personality. The thematic accent in the educational content of music is the Bulgarian musical folklore. The outline and understanding of integrative links with other subjects are necessary to build a productive cognitive process, to preserve and stimulate interest in Bulgarian folklore. The integral approach develops the pupils' potential and motivates them for a deeper study of the subjects.
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The article reveals the reasons why students drop out of the education system. The subject of the study is dropping out of school. The subject of the study is the reasons for dropping out of school. Methods of research: content analysis, questionnaire, statistical methods for processing the received data. A study was carried out with 270 pupils from the main and the secondary educational level of schools in the Stara Zagora Region. The results indicate that a significant proportion of the reasons for dropping out of school is taken up by the educational reasons. Pupils rank the leading positions among these reasons to be the poor classroom discipline; the complex learning content included in school textbooks and the incomprehensible teaching of some teachers.
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The aim of the research is to examine primary teachers’ satisfaction with their professional activity. Subject of study are 232 primary school teachers who teach different school subjects from the 1st to the 4th grade. A modified questionnaire, with 22 items related to the satisfaction with the teaching profession, is applied. The following statistical methods are used: alternative analysis, variance analysis, non-parametric Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis H tests and correlation analysis. The results show that the items with highest values for the primary teachers’ satisfaction are: the duration of holidays, the professional relations with colleagues, the professional relations with the school management, and with parents. The statistical analysis outlines some significant correlations between different factors of the teachers’ satisfaction. The results from the research reveal the main preconditions for improvement of the work conditions and of the social environment of the primary school teachers in the country
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The preparation of students in special pedagogy in recent years is oriented towards taking into account the importance of the achievements of neuroscience. The latter contributes to the content of the curriculum. The specificity of special pedagogy as a medical-pedagogical science derives the implicit presence of neurosciences in the study of its object. The results of the surveys’ analysis clearly emphasize that there is an awareness of the application of neuroscience in general. However, the specifics of structuring the presented new knowledge in order to optimally absorb it based on concepts and practical achievements do not cover the real applicability and subject of study of this interdisciplinary science.
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This study investigates some features of language learning in countries in transition, focusing on Kosovo and South-East European areas and viewing the process in relation to language learning culture before. Understanding that language teaching is not a task pertaining to a teacher of language and literature, but to the whole school system, and intersubjective thinking began to produce their effects especially from the fall of the Berlin Wall and thereon, in almost all South-East Europe countries in transition. Kosovo was one of the countries affected by a transitional atmosphere in which introduction of different methods and techniques in the classroom were not only being seen as a need, but as a must. The present paper aims to argue that language learning and teaching, especially in countries that are going through a transition process, represents a very important challenge in terms of inputs and outputs of the system of education of today’s society.
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This paper examines the issue of smart leadership for smart cities and the challenges they are facing. Particular emphasis is given to Africa (Rwanda and Ethiopia) which undergoing impressive urban growth at the rate of 3.5% annually that makes Africa the fastest urbanizing place in the world. However, the development of infrastructure and industries has not kept pace with the growth in urban population. Then how should Africa leaders be prepared and deal with the booming urbanization process? Smart Leadership for Smart Cities: a solution to the booming urbanization process in the continent. Indeed, as indicated in African Smart Cities Strategies for Agenda 2063, smart leaders- smarter citizens-smarter cities can alleviate African urban challenges. Indeed, only a little research discusses political leadership and commitment/political rationalities while the literature of technology innovation/technical rationalities is abundant. Recognizing the fact that Smart cities will not succeed without developing smart leadership, Rwanda under Paul Kagame and Ethiopia under Abiy Ahmed- have launched Smart Kigali initiative and “Beautifying Sheger” project respectively with the aims to develop the entire urban eco-system and realize smarter and sustainable neighborhoods and cities in their respective capital cities. The study employed a secondary method of data collection and analysis in combination with observation. Thus, the study concludes that political leadership is indispensable and leaders in both countries are undertaking impressive measures in transforming their country while building alliances and partnerships with various stakeholders. However, such initiatives are challenged by factors like trust and transparency, debt burden, public participation, and poor existing infrastructure. African leaders and their policymakers can learn a lot from the experiences of the two countries and their leadership style and moreover it provides a valuable contribution to the much-untouched areas of smart leadership for smart cities.
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Smart city consists of: waste management, smart energy, education, smart communications, smart transportation, traffic management, smart parking, smart streetlights and smart healthcare. All of these areas require management of information safety. Here, the topic is management of information safety in healthcare. The objective is to show the new approach to management of information safety, which involves all employees in this process. Whether manufacturing or service, public or private, organizations increasingly depend on information and communication technology (ICT). ICT presents in such extent that its users are not even aware of its influence. It is a usual part of any organization. However, the dependence on ICT holds a potential hazard for organization’s performance. Some issues about the ICT safety should be addressed in every organization. First, does the management of an organization is aware of the potential risks and problems in the ICT area, such as potential ICT unavailability (risk culture) or accidental damage? Is there a systematic approach to threat identification, vulnerability exploration, and evaluation of the impact of realized threats on the business? Is an organization aware of the value of ICT, which should be treated in the organization as any other asset influencing business efficiency and effectiveness? Preventive and corrective actions (system of controls) are warranted for mitigating the risk of destruction or abuse of ICT. In this paper, we discuss these questions and suggest possible solutions. There are many works about the topic but these are stressed only one segment in management of information safety. We used case study, observation and structure analysis in our exploration. The results will be presented here. The results will be useful for everybody who is worried about information security in organizations. Value of this paper is showing the need of multidisciplinary approach in management of information safety.
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This paper presents a study of the system of lexical devices used by English speakers to verbalize theirpersonal memory experiences. The approach presented in the paper presupposes inclusion of nonnarrativestructures into the spectrum of language forms conveying mnemonic meanings and extends thelatter so as to encompass the meanings of encoding, storage, retrieval and loss. The research is based onthe hypothesis that lexical units expressing memory-related meanings in English constitute a specificallyorganized system. A variety of communicative contexts representing mnemonic situations are analyzed asto d evelop a t ypology o f m emory v erbalizers i n E nglish, estimate t heir f unctional p otential a nd role i nobjectifying personal memory experiences on the lexical level. The results confirm the original hypothesisand suggest that mnemonic lexicon as a linguistic reflection of the mnemonic faculty is an important andlargely understudied element of the language – memory system.
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This paper reports on an analysis of stance expressions in a 439,490-word corpus of Ken Hyland’s academic prose, encompassing 64 single-authored texts from journals, edited collections and his own monographs. Using WordSmith Tools 6.0, the study aims to find out how this expert academic writer creates his authorial self through stance mechanisms. The results reveal that Hyland’s authorial participation in his discourse is mostly manifested through hedges, somewhat less definitely through boosters, but relatively infrequently by attitude markers and self-mention. The choice of the specific stance devices indicates a preference for detached objectivity when formulating empirically verifiable propositions and a shift towards subjectivity when referring to discourse acts and research methodology. These findings contribute to our understanding of stance-taking expertise in applied linguistics and may thus assist novice writers in the field in a more effective management of their own performance of self inacademic prose.
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