Global Children's Reading Contest in Bulgarian

International competition chooses a king and queen of letters

published on 2/12/24 1:56 PM

Photo: Bulgarian Sunday School "Bukvar"

It was a group of parents from the German city of Koblenz who initiated the establishment of the Bulgarian Sunday School "Bukvar" in the city. Since 2021, it has been included in the list of Bulgarian Sunday schools abroad, drawn up by the Ministry of Education and Science. As in other similar Bulgarian schools around the world, students study Bulgarian language, literature, geography and history.

This year the school is hosting an exciting event for which the participants are actively preparing - the 8th International Bulgarian Reading Competition for first and second graders abroad. Founded in 2010-2011 by the Cologne Sunday School "Az Buki Vedi", the competition is held in different places, mostly in Europe, and aims to motivate children of Bulgarian origin living abroad to read and speak their mother tongue and to improve their language skills.

In a special interview for Radio Bulgaria, Deyana Zheleva , director of the Bulgarian school "Bukvar" in Koblenz, tells us about the difficulties that children face in learning Bulgarian, especially if they come from mixed marriages:

"We start with the alphabet because most of Europe does not write in Cyrillic. Our children are actually learning a completely different alphabet. They are very proud of this fact and we encourage them. Bulgarian belongs to the Slavic language group, and if the children live in the UK, Germany, Spain or Italy, they belong to different language groups, speaking languages with different grammar and pronunciation, which makes learning Bulgarian more difficult. No matter how hard the children try, you can still tell that they grew up somewhere else, not in Bulgaria," explains Deyana Zheleva. A look back at the 2022 competition.

According to her, holding this competition is important for several reasons - it is an opportunity for the students to have an experience, it is an effort to preserve a tradition, and last but not least, when parents and children from different cities and countries get together, there is a spontaneous exchange between them, without any prior preparation or set scenario.

What are the rules?

"Each school working under our Ministry of Education programmes is allowed to enrol two first and two second graders, and the competition is held in three rounds. In the first round, the children read familiar texts that we send them in advance after they have applied to enter the competition. In the second round, they read an unfamiliar literary text, and in the third round, which is not open to all, they recite a poem. Believe me, this is not easy for first and second graders".

The competition will take place on 8 June at 11:30 local time at the Hermann-Höfer-Vereinshaus in Koblenz. The event's partners are the Executive Agency for Bulgarians Abroad (EABA), Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), the public news agency Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA), the AzBuki publishing house of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, two private publishing houses and Tatkovina online radio. The prize fund is provided by the Prosveta publishing house, the EABA and the Bulgarian Consulate in Frankfurt am Main.

Compiled by Ioan Kolev (based on an interview by Krasimir Martynov)

Photos: BTA, Bulgarian Sunday School "Bukvar"

Translated and posted by Elizabeth Radkova

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