Hiring remote teachers can help Bulgarian Sunday schools abroad

published on 6/25/25 11:27 AM

Yana Todorova

Photo: Private archive

Yana Todorova is a tour guide and teacher. Since 2019, she has been a member of the Association of Tour Guides in Bulgaria, but has been working as such since 2006. She uses every opportunity to do so today, especially within the framework of the Educational Routes program, supported by the Ministry of Education and Science. For three years now, through it, students from Bulgarian weekend schools abroad have been able to travel around Bulgaria, get to know it and fall in love with it, with food, transportation, accommodation and museum entry fees being fully covered by funds from the program. ‎

However, the reason for talking to Yana is related to the experience she has and the challenges she encounters in her work as a remote teacher at the Bulgarian Sunday School "Cyril and Methodius" in Paris. Although she currently teaches Bulgarian language and history only there, a few years ago she managed to conduct classes in another two other schools:

"In 2020, I was at a conference in the Northern Irish city of Armagh", Yana Todorova recalls in an interview with Radio Bulgaria. "After the conference, it was determined that students needed to learn remotely, and their teachers were not prepared. That's why I became a remote teacher at the Ivan Vazov School in Armagh. A few months later, my colleagues from the Bulgarche Sunday School in Naples also asked me to lend a hand and so suddenly I was teaching in three Bulgarian Sunday schools."

Preparing and conducting classes with so many students of different ages, who are between the 5th and 12th grade, is certainly not an easy task. There are difficulties both in terms of working with some of the students, as well as those of a purely logistical nature, related to the classes, which in the various schools where Yana has taught until recently, are sometimes held in the afternoon and evening during the week, and sometimes during the day on Saturdays and Sundays. Furthermore:

"The students come from different types of families. Some are from entirely Bulgarian families who moved abroad to work. Others were born abroad, and others were very young when they left Bulgaria and the Bulgarian education system. So these are students who have a very large and rich language culture and Bulgarian is not really the first language for everyone. Some children have an accent, incorrectly placed stress on words, but the most valuable thing when meeting them is their desire to learn, although the two classes of Bulgarian and one class of history and geography per week are extremely insufficient to maintain their knowledge of the language."

Therefore, from a pedagogical point of view, it is appropriate to divide the classes into two days of the week - one on a weekday and one on the weekend. This is especially possible in France, as public schools do not have classes on Wednesday afternoons, and the time is used for extracurricular activities, sports and art.

Yana pointed out that the Bulgarian Sunday School "Cyril and Methodius" has a problem that is common to all Sunday schools around the world - students stop attending classes due to a certain decision of their parents. ‎

‎"Two of their arguments are the busy schedule in general education schools in the respective country and the difficulty of maintaining such a rhythm. The second is related to the personal character of the child and the family. The solution to such a problem is the remote form of teaching, because sometimes the movement of students to the school in the respective city can take more than an hour or two. That is exactly the example I will give you. I have students who join on Saturday morning from Australia. The time difference does not bother them - they attend class, then have dinner and go to bed. So it is entirely a matter of personal character and the desire to maintain the language, culture, tradition and connection with Bulgaria."‎

According to Yana, in order to solve the problem of the staff necessary for the functioning of Bulgarian Sunday schools abroad, it would be good to start more actively hiring remote teachers, no matter where in the world they live. All you need is a stable internet access, with which the connection is established in seconds. ‎

Photos: Yana Torodova's private archive
English version: R. Petkova

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Tourist guide and teacher Yana Todorova to Radio Bulgaria:‎

Hiring remote teachers can help Bulgarian Sunday schools abroad

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