April Fools' Day!!!

This year Group 34-H contributed their hilarious jokes to the Hyde Park Collection of Humour. Thank you, guys. You can help yourself to some laughter by clicking HERE .

English Project in Argo Camp

From March 20 to March 26 I was in charge of Argo Camp Programme in Camp Leader (Puscha-Vodytsya). The whole period was a kind of a demo version of our capabilities. We had a lot of Artistic Studios, a couple of PDP (Personality Development Programme)sessions, loads of dancing and three sessions of English Project. My part of it with more mature campers was devoted to creative writing. We took the good old OUP Project English-2 by venerable Tom Hutchinson with the comic strip about a spaceship's crew finding themselves on a mysterious planet, which is a sort of an Intergalactic Zoo. The crew appear to be just another exhibit there. So, the task was to create continuation of the story in the form of a comic strip. Three days proved not to be enough for completing the whole project, but the beginning looks quite promising.




The authors: Anna Tisnoguz, Sophia Padalko and Maria Samovol, with creative participation of Dmytro Klymenko, Artem Bondur, Artem Drozdov, Mykyta Solodkyi and Mykhailo Kaplun.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Yet again.

The St. Patrick's Day custom came to America in 1737. That was the first year St. Patrick's Day was publicly celebrated in this country, in Boston.



Today, people celebrate the day with parades, wearing of the green, and drinking beer. One reason St. Patrick's Day might have become so popular is that it takes place just a few days before the first day of spring. One might say it has become the first green of spring. In Chicago, for example, they paint their river green!



And this is the way it is celebrated in Ireland. You can watch some Balcony TV HERE.

English Literature Project

The time has come for the students of Group 34-H to finalize their English Literature projects. You should choose your favorite English author and his/her book. Then - tell the audience about the author's biography and about the book (the plot, main character(s) and messages). The actual time of speaking: 10 - 15 min followed by 5 - 10 min of comprehension questions (comprehension control tasks) and discussion. The project material is to be prepared in the form of a Powerpoint Presentation (to illustrate your lecture) and a Microsoft Word Document for handouts.

You can find the sample presentation of Jonathan Swift (my favorite author) HERE . Of course, your presentations do not have to be THAT BIG - 12 - 15 slides will be enough. As to the text document, you can see the sample HERE . In your case, make it 2 - 3 pages with illustrations. Your projects are to be READY by March 19. Good luck!

International Women's Day

Happy 8th of March, dear ladies!
Thank you for enabling us, men, to prove being not just men but gentleMEN. And may every day of your life you feel as special as on the 8th of March.

English Literature Course

In early September last year I was assigned to teach Group 34-H ("H" stands for "Humanities") a course of English Literature. I was teaching some in Consul Gymnasium, and in Intellect Lycee. However, when I first tried to teach it in Naukova Zmina four years ago, I found the available coursebooks not meeting the needs of our curriculum being either too shallow, too huge or not systematized. That is why I decided to create a sort of a coursebook myself compiling it from a number of sources and calling it A Glimpse of English Literature. You can get your own copy of its Part 1 by clicking HERE .


The general course plan is the following:
1. Teach Old English Literature from Celtic Sagas to Chaucer (see Part 1).
2. Teach Elizabethan Literature focusing on Marlowe and Shakespeare.
3. Present Jonathan Swift and his Gulliver's Travels in a format of a lecture with a Powerpoint Presentation thus setting an example for the students how to do THEIR projects.
4. Have the students present their projects on their favourite authors.

I hope we'll manage to complete it before the academic year ends.

Queen Mary University of London

On the first spring day (March 1, 2011), the Lycee was visited by Dr Stuart Perrin, Deputy Director, Language and learning Unit of Queen Mary University of London, UK, accompanied by Yulia Dmytryshyn, Program manager from DEC-Education, Kyiv.
Dr Perrin made a lively presentation of his university for the audience consisting of our students from Groups 22-E, 42-E and 43-E. Our students demonstrated impressive abilities not only to understand the presenter, but also to maintain dialogue. Dr Perrin liked the questions they asked, and eagerly answered them. Our guys were interested in the contents of studying at different faculties, the possibility to obtain a part-time job in London, details of accommodation, visa matters etc. In the final part of the meeting Ms Dmytryshyn checked if the audience has understood the presentation by asking a number of questions. The correct answers won our students some cute prizes including baseball caps, mugs, bags and badges. The most active participants were Vlad Chykivchuk, Sasha Barchuk, Vlad Kuzmenko, Ulyana Tkachenko, Artem Rudnytsky, Yaroslava Martsenyuk, Kate Martynyuk, Ivan Batrak (all of Group 42-E); Oleksandr Sikorsky and Ann Atamas (both of Group 43-E).

You can view the actual presentation HERE .
For further details contact Yulia Dmytryshyn at www.dec-edu.com