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Varna (Bulgaria)
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The Fifth Language "Joan Exarch" High
School in Varna is founded in 1956. Since 1994 the school has acquired a
statute of a profiled language school with three principal languages
taught: English, French and German. Now, this is one of the most selective
secondary schools in Northeastern Bulgaria. Students are eligible to apply if
they have already completed their first 7 years of academic study. Candidates
are admitted after highly competitive entrance examinations. Out of an
approximate annual number of more than 1500 applicants, 182 are accepted each
year, of whom 52 in the English Language Department, 78 in the German Language
Department, and 52 in the French Language Department. Current number of student
body is 869, divided into 33 classes ranging from 8-th to 12-th class.
The 62 teachers working in the school are highly qualified in
all general education subjects and culture of other peoples, the rights of men,
and civil society.
There are native-speaker foreign teachers, too.
A characteristic feature of all the activities of the
sections of the school system is the participation of students and teaching
staff in various academic inter-school programs, development of co-operative
projects with institutions and schools from the country and abroad. The school
Internet network is a valuable opportunity for exchange of information and
experience in different school subjects and a prerequisite for the formation of
joint teacher-student teams and work groups for participation in various
initiatives of national and international scope.
The school has been involved in :
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The Holocaust international project , which main
aim is safeguarding human rights; |
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The VIFAX international program for popularization of the
French language and culture, further development of students' communicative
skills, and mastering of the contemporary French language. The program
involves teacher training and practical application of modern methods of
teaching; |
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A Peace Corps educational program for Bulgaria as a
result of which volunteer teachers of English have worked for the second
year in the school; |
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A program of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and
Science and the Consulate Department for German Language to the Embassy of
the Federal Republic of Germany for students from language schools who would
like to acquire a German Language Diploma; |
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Intergovernmental agreements as per which the school can
employ teaching staff from The Federal Republic of Germany and France; |
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Students as well as members of staff work on the I*EARN
project. Their materials could be seen in A Vision, The Contemporary and
other publications. They have also participated in the Stop Violence and
World action for the Millennium conferences. |
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The Joan Exarch High School in Varna is rated
among the first thirteen schools in the country and is the only one in town
equipped with Schools Online computer laboratory one to work on
regional, national, and international projects with permanent access to
INTERNET. |
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In November the school has began work on the Cultural
Identity, Traditions and local Holidays educational project in
co-operation with schools from France, Italy and Finland as part of the
Commensky Program of the Socrates National Agency, Activity One. |
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To the closing up of the TEMPUS project teachers from the
school have actively participated in it by developing methodological and
research projects of aids to education and tests for acquisition control
that have come out in publications. |
The students who have graduated in the last two years have
shown remarkably high scores at the entrance exams of Bulgarian universities and
universities abroad.
In three successive years students from the school have been
prize-winners and won scholarships for studying in the USA and Great Britain at
competitions organized by the Open Society Foundation.
As a result of participating in the National Olympiad in
German language in two successive years students from the school have been sent
to study in Germany.
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In 1998 the school organized an international conference
on the topic: Computer Technologies in the Foreign Language Teaching.
The same year students from the school taking part in the
I*EARN project attended an international seminar in Hungary and in December 1999
went to the Balkan Meeting of the Project in Blagoevgrad.
Numerous are the activities of students taking part in essay
writing contests in English, French and German. Some have been awarded prizes
and published in Bulgarian and foreign editions such as A Vision, The
Contemporary, and propagated through a Canadian server.
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During the second term of the 1998-99 school year
students teams took part in a Francophonic on-line Internet Web Night, which
aroused exceptional interest. Students showed masterly confidence in working in
Internet, wide general knowledge, quick logical thinking, and remarkable
linguistic communicative skills.
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The excellent performances of students from the school at
national competitions in Philosophy, Mathematics and Computer Linguistics have
become traditional since 1998 , and in 1999 and 2000 the school teams took the
second and the third places.
Students from the school have, on the whole, taken part in a
diversity of competitions on national level, organized by various institutions
and have been awarded .
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Although the school does not have a profile in mathematics
or the natural sciences, our students have participated in math Olympiads at
district and regional levels. Besides the standard content amount as per the
educational programs in computer studies a large number of deeply motivated
students are taught to master advanced skills to work with the newest software
products. A combined teachers-and-students team has prepared a web site of the
school to participate in a competition. There are several projects of lessons in
Psychology and English language and others at interdisciplinary level. |
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