Slovenia launches mobile app, interactive textbook for immigrants

Slonline is a popular free Slovenian language online course available in several European languages. Now it has also been made available as a mobile app and an interactive textbook.

The new online textbook, called Naslon, is aimed at adult immigrants to Slovenia and those planning to move to the country. It is available in seven languages, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.

Developed by the Centre for Slovenian as a Second and Foreign Language, it can be used in flexible ways, either for self-study, guided learning with a teacher or a combination of both.

The textbook covers vocabulary, communication patterns and texts that individuals most often encounter in official settings. The content reflects the real communicative needs of adult immigrants during the initial stages of life in Slovenia.

One of the aims was "to develop a new interactive textbook for learning Slovenian to bring together material that may be missing from other teaching material", Matej Klemen from the centre told the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) at the project's presentation on 15 December.

Those added were linguistically demanding situations that immigrants encounter very often, such as dealing with paperwork at administrative units, seeking medical help or communicating with their children's teachers.

Meanwhile, the centre has also upgraded the basic Slonline course, which is now also available as a mobile app. Moreover, it has also been made available in Albanian, to join English, French, Croatian, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish.

"Albanian was chosen because it is the language of the largest non-Slavic immigrant community in Slovenia," Klemen said.

According to him, the online course is very popular, with a total of over 60,000 users registered from virtually every country around the world. Between 4,000 and 5,000 people actively use it every month, and the numbers are expected to increase following the latest upgrade.

The main aim of the course remains the linguistic empowerment of immigrants, Klemen said.

The Slonline course was upgraded as part of a project co-funded by the Culture Ministry. It was launched at the University of Ljubljana, where the Centre for Slovenian as a Second and Foreign Language operates within the Faculty of Arts.

As reported by CE Report, Slovenia was divided after vandalism of Josip Broz Tito's statue.

Photo: A screenshot of Slonline, a free Slovenian online course.