6th grade students at the Window on America.

   On 24 of April more than 20 students of the 6^th grade from Classical Gymnasium visited Sumy Window on America center. We told our guests about printed and e resources of the Window on America center, which were designed to help them in learning English, presented Rosetta Stone, spoke about the activities of the center. We told the students about the various new projects of PC volunteers in Sumy, in which they can participate. We gave them a brief demonstration on kindle and iPad. Also they had a great fun playing table and Kinect games.

 

 

Discover Connecticut

On 19 of April students from Classical gymnasium came to the Window on America center to meet PC Volunteer David and to know more about his native state Connecticut. Our young guests asked too many questions, concerning American teenagers, food, school life, entertainment, American holidays, and so on. The conversation was very lively and positive. They played Spelling Bee and didn’t want to go home. We thank David, students and their English teacher for the interesting meeting and we are looking forward our future joint events!

Welcome to Window on America center!

   On April, 17 Sumy Window on America Center hosted a group of school students, they got acquainted with our center. Also we introduced children to popular American board games such as Scrabble, Monopoly and Taboo.The kids were pleased to participate in joyful and informative board game Taboo, learnt new words and phrases in English.

PC volunteer Julia Lee was our guest of the event. Children learnt about San Francisco and demonstrated their knowledge of English, asking her a lot of questions. In the end everybody enjoyed playing kinect games and left the center in the wonderful mood.

 

XBox Kinect in the Library

  On 10 of April 29 high school students from Classical gymnasium visited Sumy Window on America Center to learn more about its activities, e-resources and e- devices. We believe that games are an important part of development. It was a great experience to try Xbox Kinect and we hope to be able to add it to our offerings soon. Students played the Kinect games which allowed to dance, play sports, exercise, and more. Xbox Kinect games took them into the action and let them interact in the game.

Come to us to play and have a good time! You are guaranteed to have a fun and share laughs!

Explore the Site of Learning English

LearningEnglish.voanews.com is a site that provides engaging and interesting content based on news and information. Special English is “special” because stories are read at a slower rate of speech than regular VOA English programs. Also, the stories are written at the intermediate and upper-beginner level, and in some cases at lower levels. The content changes regularly. There is something for everyone of all ages and fields of interest, whether learning or teaching English. Additionally, users can access content on foreign policy issues to review, discuss, or debate.

Explore the site! Regular use of Learning English will help teachers and learners use and improve their English, while learning about a broad range of topics, in an innovative and creative way.

1. Go to http://learningenglish.voanews.com/

2. Choose a story that is relevant and interesting to your learners or related to your curriculum.

3. Read and listen to the story. It may take a moment to explore how to listen and read the story at the same time. (Print the story or cut and paste the text to a word processing document to be able to make copies or work with it offline in a classroom setting.)

4. Decide what activities go best with the story or for your class. Activities like discussion groups, giving speeches based on the topic, vocabulary study, and word games are some of the many options.

5. Now try the YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/voalearningenglish). How can you best use this resource? Over 1,000 short captioned videos on many different subjects are available.

6. Gather participants to use the material. Take this opportunity to preview ECA’s American English website (http://americanenglish.state.gov/) and Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/AmericanEnglishatState) as resources to use. Ask participants to "like" the Facebook page. This will give you a way to organize activities in advance of the arrival of Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur products, integrating these into American Spaces and other venues.

7. Organize a lesson around a Special English story. You may wish to focus on the story itself, reactions to it, or aspects of the language presented in it. This is a good way to work in foreign policy topics and promote discussion as relates to learners’ lives.

8. Let students work online or explore how they can use the stories working from their mobile devices or CDs you burn for this purpose (or on computers where you have downloaded a number of text/audio files.)

9. You or your participants may be able to take part in a Skype call-in show with VOA in Washington. Watch the VOA Learning English Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/voalearningenglish) for details.

Xbox @ the library

  On 3 of April about 30 students from high school visited Window on America center. They learned more about collection of children's literature in English, about American board games. Most of attention was attracted by Kindle and iPads.  Our guests expressed great interest in learning about Window on America center events, our resources and services. We tried the Xbox Kinect in the library for the first time. It was a great experience, we had a real blast. The children had a great time, had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs and really enjoyed it. Leaving many participants said that they could not imagine that library was so cool place with iPads and Xbox and were going to return here again.

Playing the Game “100 Really Dumb Things”

Welcome to English-Speaking Club. Last month we had a variety of topics discussed:

5.03 Playing the game.

 Would you like to do a Chicken Dance around the room, to meow like a cat or to wear a cat nose? You can do it at our English – Speaking Club! That day the participants of our club played the game “100 Really Dumb Things”. The players drew cards, that told them to tap their heels together and to say “There is no place like home”, to do a hula dance using a tambourine, to pretend to jump rope, to hiss like a snake or to do some other dumb things. Everybody seemed to enjoy it, as it made all the players laugh uncontrollably at each other.

12.03. Writing a letter

19.03. Playing the game “Guess Who I Am”

26.03. What Do You Think About Charity?

Conversation Circle

There were three meetings of the Conversation Circle in March. During the first meeting on March 6^th was discussed topic “The International Women’s Day”.  Members of the Circle compared the ways it was celebrated in different countries and exchanged views about it. The topic of the second meeting on March 13^th was “St. Patrick’s Day”. People remembered the history of the Irish tradition and exchanged views on the topic. The 3^rd meeting took place on March 27^th and was devoted to the playing of two conversational games: “What to choose” and “Scattegories”. It was a real fun and pleasure.