Teaching Modern NLP and LLMs at Kyiv School of Economics: A Practice-Oriented Course with Ukrainian Language Focus

This paper describes a Natural Language Processing (NLP) course taught at Kyiv School of Economics. The course consists of 16 lectures, 5 practical assignments and focuses on modern large language models (LLMs) while preserving an introduction to classical NLP. Practical assignments are organized using Kaggle, where GPU support plays an important role in enabling students to work with complex models. A key feature of the course is the focus on Ukrainian in the practical assignments, contributing to the development of Ukrainian NLP expertise and community. The course is taught primarily in-person, but due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, also includes a full online participation option and additional weekly QnA sessions.