Ugnė Lisauskaitė
Ugnė graduated with a degree in Social Project Management in Sweden and also studied at the Architecture Department of the Vilnius Academy of Arts. During her studies, she felt inspired to pursue a career in teaching. For the past three years, she has been working in the field of education, teaching English to Lithuanian students (in both public and private schools), as well as Lithuanian to English-speaking adults and youth. Teaching her native language to people coming to Lithuania from other countries and discovering it anew became Ugnė’s closest pedagogical passion. She found genuine joy in learning how to present the Lithuanian language to foreigners in a way they could understand.
Ugnė makes an effort to immerse herself in the kinds of conversations her students encounter in their daily lives and helps them feel confident in these everyday situations—whether it’s chatting with peers, meeting new people, talking to shopkeepers, baristas, and others. “Although the main goal is to teach conversational language, our colorful grammar is inseparable from this process. Presenting it in an engaging and comprehensible way has become a particularly interesting creative and analytical task for me,” says Ugnė.
In addition to her teaching work, Ugnė has a deep interest in business, investments, and social entrepreneurship, and is constantly developing projects in this field. She is not hesitant to introduce more advanced students to vocabulary, phrases, and common dialogues related to these topics in her lessons. She also enjoys painting, is interested in street art projects, travels extensively, and values communication and collaboration with people from all over the world.
Ugnė believes that the most valuable learning process happens when both the students and the teacher know each other as individuals and feel comfortable and courageous to learn together, make mistakes, explore, and experiment. She feels it’s essential to consider students’ needs, from emotional, safety, and comfort to self-expression, being heard, being part of a community, and learning creatively. “I deeply respect and value my students as individuals, and this helps me establish a personal and trustworthy connection with them,” U. Lisauskaitė affirms.