On September 18, 2025, the final international symposium of the research project Strengthening the (social-) constructivist approach in Slovenian border areas to the teaching and learning of neighbouring languages (SJ) in primary school through a co-created extension and evaluation of the CoBLaLT model, entitled Neighbouring languages, a common future: pedagogy for education in border regions, was held at the Lojze Bratuž Cultural Centre in Gorizia.
The project, led by Irina Moira Cavaion, PhD from the Institute for Language Studies of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts Koper, was dedicated to the development and evaluation of a model for teaching neighbouring languages in border areas. The Institute for Ethnic Issues (INV) also participated in it.
At the symposium, which was rich in content, the following also presented their research results:
- Director Sonja Novak Lukanović, PhD with the paper Border Areas: Similarities and Differences in the Acceptance of Linguistic and Cultural Diversity,
- Researcher Barbara Riman, PhD with the paper History, Language and Border: Learning a Neighboring Language with Special Emphasis on the Slovenian-Croatian Border,
- Researcher Robert Devetak, PhD with the presentation “At that moment we felt that we were close and that we had broken the border”: contacts between the Milojka Štrukelj Elementary School and San Vendemiano in the period between the 1960s and 1980s.
The event confirmed the importance of cooperation and innovative approaches to language teaching in border regions and contributed to the formation of a vision of a common future based on linguistic and cultural diversity.
