On January 15, 2026, the last activity within the project “Lingo Key” – “Language is the key to understanding your neighbors” took place: the cross-border international conference “…Language holds the land, the land holds the language” took place at the Auce Culture House, which was attended by the parties involved in the project and guests who, like the participants, are not indifferent to the Latvian and Lithuanian language teaching and translation processes affected by the project.
The conference was opened by the head of the Dobele Regional Education Board, Aija Didrihsone, with the key words for the project and the conference, and the participants were also pleased with a musical greeting from the project participants from the 6th and 6th grade students of Auce Secondary School.
The topics proposed by the speakers were very well integrated and even expanded the issues raised in the project about the mutual connections between the Latvian and Lithuanian languages, as well as touched upon various challenges both in translating and using them. In her report “Calculations in Latvian. What language errors should both teachers and translators avoid” Sandra Ratniece, a teacher at Riga Reinholdas Šmēlingas Secondary School, spoke about the tendency of calques in Latvian.
In turn, the poet, re-editor and representative of the authors’ group “Tekstūra” Kristaps Vecgrāvis shared his experience as a re-editor in his report “Re-editor’s Choices in Latvianizing Prana Markūnas’ Poetry”. The report offered a view on re-editor’s responsibility and creative freedom in translating modernist poetry.
The presentation part of the papers was concluded by the lecture “The Fairytale World of the Baltic Peoples” by LingoKey course expert Regina Valtenberga, in which she emphasized the Baltic folklore heritage, which has been reworked and rewritten over time, and thus has probably lost its original purpose. Regina Valtenberga emphasized that it is the task of the Latvian and Lithuanian society of the 21st century to return the original meaning of the folklore heritage.
After the presentation part, a conference panel discussion was held, entitled “Implementation of Pilot Activities and Conclusions”, in which teachers from Auce Secondary School, Eleja Secondary School in Latvia, Joniškis District Primary School, Žagare Gymnasium, Skaistgiris Gymnasium, Saule Primary School, Joniškis Mato Slančiausko Progymnasium in Lithuania participated. The panel discussion participants emphasized both the benefits during the development of the project and also highlighted the problems that had to be faced during its implementation. The discussion turned out to be intense and engaging for the audience.
The conference agenda was concluded by the section “Examples of good practice for educators”, in which Rudīte Dude shared her experience in the project, Aija Klūga with an evaluation of the practical work of the project, introducing the audience to the story “LingoKey challenges and interesting things in pilot classes at Augstkalne primary school” and Inese Klausa from Eleja secondary school gave a lecture “From folklore to language”, while the conference section was concluded by a representative from Žagare gymnasium with encouraging news about the project result – a developed methodology for learning Latvian and Lithuanian – the publication “LITHUANIAN–LATVIAN CONVERSATION BOOK” was presented.
The project will conclude at Žagare Gymnasium on January 30 of this year, but it can already be said that extensive work on developing methodological materials has been completed, as well as intensive practical language learning classes, which are just the beginning of further learning of Latvian and Lithuanian languages in a school environment.
