Dimitrios S. Mpenekos

Dimitrios S. Benekos studied philology at the University of Ioannina and has been teaching the Greek language to the children of Greek immigrants in public German schools since 1977. Between 1972 and 1975, he pursued postgraduate studies at the University of Bonn and later earned his doctorate in Folklore from the University of Ioannina. In 1983, he was seconded to the Pedagogical Institute of North Rhine-Westphalia (Landesinstitut für Schule Nordrhein-Westfalen) and took on the task of further training foreign (including Greek) educators integrated into the German educational system. He is also responsible for the further training of all foreign educators in matters of mother tongue and the recognition of the mother tongue as a foreign language in the administrative region of Münster. Since 1993, as an educational associate of the Landesinstitut, he has participated in the writing and editing of the series of language books titled "Ta Ellinika Mas" ("Our Greek"), intended for teaching the Greek language and culture to children of Greek expatriates. He served as a member of the editorial committee of the German Ministry of Education of North Rhine-Westphalia, tasked with designing and drafting curricula for teaching the Mother Tongue in grades 1-6 and 7-10. He was a member of the scientific committee of the program "Education for Expatriates - Greek Language Education in Germany," implemented by the University of Crete on behalf of the Greek Ministry of Education. He has published numerous works on folklore and pedagogical content and has participated as a speaker in various conferences in Greece and Germany.