EDUCATION AND TRAINING > UKRAINE

To handle football fans border guards learn English

Ukraine is getting ready for Euro 2012, and its border guards are www.enpi-info.eu happily back in class. On April 2011 a very special English course started in the port city of Odessa: 150 hours of intensive study were oered to border inspectors with little or no knowledge of English. Such sessions will be held in dierent Ukrainian cities until May 2012. The reason? Ukraine will host the European football championship in 2012, and hundreds of thousands of foreigners are expected to visit the country. The initiative is organized by the National Academy of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and facilitated by the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM), and it is considered an essential part of Ukraines preparations for Euro 2012.
Text and photos by Dmytro Hubenko ODESSA Hello! Do you speak English? - Just a little bit! - What is your nationality? This is not the real border control inspection, even though we are on the premises of the Odessa sea port, and the people talking are real Ukrainian border guards. We are just in the middle of the English language class that is aimed at improving language skills on the eve of the European football championship in 2012. The initiative is supported by the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM), whose overall mission is to provide quality expertise and advice on border management in line with EU best practices.

This publication does not represent the ocial view of the EC or the EU institutions. The EC accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to its content.

Training the trainers

When you see Olena Horban teaching the group, you can be quite sure she is a professional English teacher. The students are listening to her with attention. They engage in dierent games and other activities, they sing songs, and they repeat the English names of information signs. Horban smoothly leads the discussions, explains the rules and

ENPI Info Centre Feature no. 52

This is a series of features on projects funded by the EUs Regional Programme, prepared by journalists and photographers on the ground or the ENPI Info Centre. 2011 ENPI Info Centre / EU

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To handle football fans border guards learn English

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N Border guard officers listening to the English class.

corrects the mistakes and pronunciation. And the most surprising thing is that she herself is a border guard. We were intensively trained to teach English to people, says Capt. Horban. She was among 30 border guards from all over Ukraine who attended the special ten-day Train the trainers courses at the National Academy of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine in Khmelnytskyi. All of them already knew English, but they had to learn something more dicult how to transfer your personal knowledge to somebody else. Touch your hair! And now touch your forehead! the students perform the simple tasks given by Horban, memorizing the English names of the body. During the course we were taught how to master the interactive methods, meaning that all students have to get actively involved in the lesson. It is not a lecture. They have to be busy all the time, and they have to talk to each other as much as possible, explains the instructor. But it is not just the conversational English that the border guards learn, some attention is paid to grammatical rules as well.

I understand English more and better now, and my vocabulary, which was rather poor, is growing as well. I will now be more condent in communication with foreigners

Communication is essential to avoid any problems

Talking to foreigners is dicult, confesses Oleh Pokotilov from Illichivsk, who has been working at the Border Guard Service for 10 years. Usually he greets arriving foreign passengers in English. But now he can say much more than a mere Hello and How are you? even though he is only half way through the course, which will last for over a month. Of course, this amount of time is not enough to master English, but we will learn the basics, so that we will be able to communicate with passengers arriving from abroad, he declares. Vitalii Mykhalchuk is a border guard from Pivdennyi department. He already has some knowledge of English, but even for him the course is very important. I understand more and better now, and my vocabulary, which was rather poor, is growing as well. I will now be more condent in communication with foreigners, he says. All the stuUkraine is dents realize the importance of language skills: Euro 2012 is approaching, and the bordered by number of foreign football fans and tourists expected to visit Ukraine will be huge. 7 countries, But the Championship will start in June 2012, which means there is more then one and for the year before the event. Enough time to forget what has been learned Border guard Championship we Dmytro Labushev from Odessa is sure that, thanks to the courses, he will be able to are going to have speak English uently; all the same, he is not going to stop his studies afterwards. We many football will talk to each other and read the books, and we will be ready in fans and tourists June 2012, he says.

N Captain Olena Horban

coming from every direction

Press ocers on a study tour in Germany and Austria

We began preparation for the Euro 2012 last year, and the rst step was to set up Train the trainers courses, says Ronan Goggin, EUBAM Communication Ocer. The knowledge of English is one of the obvious tools you will use to facilitate and improve communication. Even though the direct area of responsibility of EUBAM is the Moldova-Ukraine border, the Missions initiatives are not conned to this zone. Ukraine is bordered by 7 countries, and for the Championship you are going to have many football fans and tourists coming from every direction, says Goggin. Therefore, in 2010 EUBAM was involved in setting up six Train the trainers courses. Six more are planned for 2011, up until the end of November. Instead of EUBAM getting involved in directly

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To handle football fans border guards learn English

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N Last year a tournament was organised for border guards from Ukraina and Moldova, and EUBAM technical staff.

training the sta, explains Goggin, it is better and more sustainable in the long term if we support the initiatives that benet trainers in Border Guards and in Customs services. These people then pass their training expertise onto their sta members. Among its rst activities, the EUBAM mission launched the development of a Ukrainian-English phrasebook for border guards, which was published in October 2009 and is now widely used by the students and multipliers. Now the Mission delivers the rest of the materials: dictionaries, books as well as computers which are being used in the English classes. Beyond this, EUBAM is also supporting the training of press ocers in Border Guards, Customs, and Ministry of Interior services. In April, the Mission organized a study tour to Austria and Germany. Ukrainian press sta was able to learn from the expertise of German and Austrian press ocers, who developed their communication strategies before the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2008. We hope that thanks to the study visit, and with a couple of subsequent workshops, they will be able to put together a public information strategy for Euro 2012, says Ronan Goggin.

Instead of EUBAM getting involved in directly training the sta, it is better and more sustainable if we support the initiatives that benets trainers in Border Guards and in Customs services. These people then pass their training expertise onto their sta member

EUBAM EU Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine

Enhances the capacities of customs and border guard services, supports the development of risk analysis capabilities and improves co-operation with other law enforcement agencies, through monitoring, training and advice

www.eubam.org/en/
Participating countries Ukraine, Moldova Timeframe 2007-2011 Budget 24 million plus in-kind contribution from Member States (86 seconded experts) Objective The EU Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM) supports the two countries to harmonize and modernize their border management standards and procedures in accordance with European standards. It also aims to enhance the professional capacities of the Moldovan and Ukrainian customs and border guard services at operational level. In addition, it oers help to develop risk analysis capacities and to improve cross border co-operation between the border guard and customs services and with other law enforcement agencies. Find out more ENPI Project che www.enpi-info.eu/eastportal/news/project/24155/English-language-a-priority-in-Ukraine EUBAM feature, Cross border football www.enpi-info.eu/maineast.php?id=307&id_type=6&lang_id=450 Education and training Thematic portal www.enpi-info.eu/themeeast.php?subject=11

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