During 5th to 7th of September, the 2nd MBU Staff Week took part in the premises of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. We hosted participants of the staff mobility and teaching mobility under Erasmus+ programme from Turkey, Poland, Germany, Finland, England, Portugal, Spain, Romania and Czech Republic.

This time we were visited mainly by women; many participants being teachers. The theme was "Language as a tool of communication in the academic environment." The event started with the activities on Wednesday, where we introduced Slovakia. Later on we promoted our University by introducing its study programmes and departments and gave to floor to our participants to introduce their working positions and universities in order to get some new contacts. In two workshops, our University introduced its Centre for projects and a University Library. We have also prepared a short course of Slovak language, which had a great response and broke the communication layers.

On Wednesday, the participants met with the rector and the vice-rector for international relations and marketing communication on the lunch in Slovak restaurant "Slovenská reštaurácia".

Thursday was dedicated to the activities on the Faculty of Arts. Our colleagues prepared some interesting programme. They introduced their faculty and consequently they led some playful quizzes about languages and language communication.

Afternoon programme continued with the visit to the wooden articular church in Hronsek, memorial room of Matej Bel, museum and craft yard in Očová. The guests were welcomed by our traditional bread and salt and they had the possibility to taste some Slovak rye bread, bryndza cheese, or various other Slovak cheese. The evening was finished with the dinner in Sliač and a wonderful walk to the mineral springs in the Sliač Spa.

Friday belonged to the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations. The dean of the faculty welcomed guests and then there were some English, German, French and Spanish workshops prepared. The afternoon programme was filled by the activities at the Economic faculty. The discussion was also led to the language communication theme. For the ending, our vice-rector thanked to all participants and we gave them the attendance certificates.

Our guests expressed their satisfaction with the great organisation and the support of the whole team. They will love to come back and we believe that the cooperation that started under this even will be fruitful in the future, too.

„Dear Participants of the 2nd MBU Staff Week,

It was a pleasure to be part of the Staff Week Group. Thank you for the common time and interesting meetings and conversations. I hope we will meet again somewhere.

Thank you Lucia for the great organization and many activities during Staff Week.

Best regards,

Malwina and Edyta"

Mgr. Lucia Oboňová , Institutional Office for the Erasmus+ mobilities, the department of the international relations.