The Train of FriendshipSeptember 23rd. The teachers of foreign languages of Daugavpils State gymnasium were waiting for the students of Form 11 ( three in a team) from all Daugavpils secondary schools. Why? It is connected with September 26th, the Day of Languages which is celebrated in the European Union. It is a tradition to have a special event for the students called „ The Train of Friendship" in our school. Students from eleven schools took part in this event. Students' teams went from one station to another and showed their skills in languages: English, German, Russian as well as had to go to Musical and Poetry stations. It is fun to get to know something new and to check their own knowledge of languages. At Poetry Station they had to write a poem. There are some of them: Language is power
Like a powerful flower,
Like undestroyable tower
It stands unrevealed.
The ways you can take,
The walls you can break
As long as you trust
Become secrets unsealed.
For those who still go
There're barriers no more.
Let's climb up the wall
Of the the languages world. Or: Language is Power!
Language is World!
Language is OUR
And it's never cold.
Language is Spirit,
Language is Force
Language is our sweet
Home for our Soul! At the end of the event students who were successful in this kind of competition were given prizes for their work. All of them valued this event highly and thanked the teachers of German, Russian and English languages. by LATE board member Oksana Deica
September 27, 2009
Spring Dayby Oksana Deica On May 7, 2009 there was an event in Daugavpils State gymnasium dedicated to the 5th anniversary of Latvia in the European Union. It was Spring Day or the European Day at school. Our students of Forms 10 took part in this celebration. May 1st was an important day for our Latvia. We are in the EU five years. Why this celebration? We wanted to get to know what our students know about the EU, give new information, knew knowledge about the history of the EU , its importance for us today.The students had an opportunity to answer the questions, to solve the quiz, to prepare presentation about one of the EU countries.One of the tasks was writing their own poems in English. I think this event helped our students to get new information and to express their attitude to our participation in the EU. „Let’s be united and friendly for ever
Make our world better.
European Union is our home,
Let’s live together and share our love.” „Oh... my lovely European Union
I hope You’ll never stop exist, And countries in your common Union I hope forever will consist”. The organizers of this event by tradition were the students of form 11. They prepared everything in order to help our 10 th formers to widen their knowledge about the EU and to show their practical skills in speaking, writing, thinking in English.
On May 8 we had our guest Sarmite Kikuste , who is a deputy of Latvian Saeima. Thanks to the „Back to School” activity we had debates about different questions such as democratic development, economical situation, open borders, education and opportunities for studies and work.Our students were really very active and interested in solving different questions. They asked Kikuste’s point of view about Turkey’s acception into the EU, has Latvia gained or lost taking part in the EU.The most active debaters were given some presents with symbols of EU by our guest Sarmite Kikuste.
April seminar in Daugavpilsby Oksana Deica, LATE board member On April 7, 2009 there was a seminar for the English teachers of Latgale region.
Andrzey Raczkowski ( Cambridge University Press ELT representative for Lithuania and Latvia and Cambridge ESOL Consultant for the Baltic States) took part in this seminar. He made a presentation about „ New Technologies in English Teaching” as well as introduced to the changes in Cambridge ESOL exams and how to prepare students for them. English teachers I.Barkovska and O.Deica ran workshops for teachers.Inese Barkovska –„ The use of popular songs and video in teaching listening and speaking skills”, Oksana Deica – „ The use of Home Reading in Developing Students’ Reading Skills”
Teachers were satisfied with ideas gained in this seminar.
Some of the feedback:„ Thank you for the possibility to come to your school , getting new ideas and inspiration for further work. Looking forward to the next seminar in August”.„ It was really interesting and useful to listen to your presentation and take part in the workshop. I also find extremely important to use home reading at English lessons, so it was useful to share our approaches. Thank you.” „ We liked your seminar very much. The workshop by Inese was relaxing but useful. Andrzej gave the useful information about new technologies in teaching”.
This seminar was very useful for the teachers of Latgale region.
From the U.S. Embassy
Pictures from the lessons which were held by the native speakers from the USA during the English
Language Month in different schools of Latvia. .................................................................................................................................................................. Online conference coverage of the 43rd IATEFL Conference
The Cardiff Online website is now live at:
http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009
The British Council and IATEFL have launched the Cardiff Online website
which offers web coverage of this year's 43rd IATEFL Annual Conference
in Cardiff.
The Cardiff Online website allows remote participants to take part in
one of the world's biggest ELT conferences through a variety of
resources including:
- Video recordings of selected session
- Audio recordings of selected sessions
- Live streamed plenaries and events
- Moderated special interest discussion forums
- Chat sessions
- Blogs and photo albums
Last year, 1,600 teachers and trainers attended the Exeter IATEFL
Conference, and over 5,000 participated online.
This year we expect a much larger audience, and this is a real
opportunity to take part in the biggest online ELT training community.
The Cardiff Online website gives you an opportunity to share ideas with
teachers all around the world. There will be interactive coverage with
video presentations, reports and interviews 'almost live' from Cardiff.
We look forward to meeting you online, and hope that you will share this
information with your colleagues worldwide.
Gavin Dudeney - Honorary Secretary,IATEFL
Julian Wing - British Council Cardiff Online Project Manager
Nik Peachey - IATEFL Online Editor
_______________________________________________________________________ Seminar in Latgaleby Oksana Deica, LATE Board member On March 9 , 2009 there was a seminar for English teachers from Daugavpils and Latgale region lead by Express Publishing teacher Craig Huxley. This seminar was held in Express Days’09. Tatyana Ginsburg and Jānis Roze bookshop gave our teachers an opportunity to listen to a native speaker, to share different ideas how to help our students to acquire needed skills in Reading, Grammar, Listening, Speaking and Writing.The following topics have been covered:Teaching Towards a Critical Mind;Interactive whiteboard: Modern Technology for the Modern ClassroomEffective Language Learning at B2 level.
45 teachers from Daugavpils schools as well as teachers from Kraslava, Jekabpils, Daugavpils region were present at this seminar. The teachers were really satisfied with this seminar.
News from Daugavpilsby Oksana Deica On November 26 Grenville Yeo, the founder of SOL Sharing One Language, visited Daugavpils. SOL is an organisation set up to support the teaching and learning of English in Eastern and Central Europe.
He had an opportunity to visit Daugavpils University to meet with two groups of students and In the afternoon Daugavpils teachers and students from different schools were invited to a meeting with Grenville Yeo in Daugavpils State gymnasium. More than 30 students and teachers took part in this meeting.
After a short video describing the courses SOL , stressing the importance of learning English he answered questions asked by teachers and students.
SOL received the first students from Latvia in previous summer. A group of students with teacher Vera Ivanova-Smith took part in these courses.
Grenville explained that SOL places great emphasis on supporting teachers by providing low cost training courses for them and also offering free places for teachers who bring 8 students on a language course. They teach students all the year round.
Teachers can find more information about SOL on http://www.sol.org.uk/
On December 2 Charles Goodger came to Daugavpils to meet the teachers of English teaching in the basic schools of Daugavpils. His aim was to tell about using Fun Songs at their lessons. He had a meeting with a head of our City Educatinal Department Olga Dukshinska as well as the methodologist of English language Ilona Ustinova.
He provided a free workshop on the didactic and motivational benefits of combining music and mime rhythm and rhyme.
28 teachers took part in this workshop.
I can say that it is interesting not only for the students of primary and basic schools but for the students of Secondary schools as well.
My students of Form 12 were really happy to spend some time with Charles Goodger and his songs.
Teachers can get a very good and interesting material for work with their students.
The teachers if they are interesed in can be contacted at his Bologna University email:
charles.goodger@unibo.it or http://www.funsongs.co.uk/
On December 3 he had the same workshop for the teachers of Kraslava.
On December 5, 2008 there was a Debating Forum in Daugavpils State gymnasium . It was held in English and Latvian languages. The theme of our Forum was: „ The Role of the UN organisation is/ isn’t important for peace existance in the world.” 14 teams from Daugavpils schools, region and Livani took part in it. The theme was chosen because our students are interested in the events taking part in the world. Our guests were Vaira Paegle a deputy of the 9 th Saeima and Ilona Ustinova – methodologist of teachers of English in Daugavpils.The students were eager to ask questions to V. Paegle .Every team had to give its presentation and the judges and our guests had to decide whose presentation was the most convincing.The discussed questions were very important for the students.Vaira Paegle in her speech answered all the students questions and highly evaluated the students skills to speak logically and to defend their own idejas.She stressed that the UN is needed in order to have peace in the whole world.The coordinator of the Debating programme in Daugavpils, Latgale region, is Oksana Deica.
Latgale regional conferenceby Oksana Deica 28th of October was the day when teachers from Latgale region met at their annual conference in Daugavpils State gymnasium. The theme of the conference was " Innovation and Creative approach as a Basis for Successful Language teaching and Learning”. It was the 10th conference for English teachers and LATE members supported by the Daugavpils City Education Department and its principal Olga Dukshinska.
The teachers had an opportunity to attend various workshops led by A. Kalviņa, I. Vitola, D. Mishka, T. Ginzburga, I. Saulīte-Bēniņa, A. Abens, A. Barnes and Ph.D.in Literature St. Barners. Teachers were able to share their experience taking part in workshops led by the teachers from Daugavpils Russian Lyceum, based on the Thinking Approach. Most of all teachers liked the workshop led by A. Abens "Short Stories as a teaching and Assessment Tool".
The organizers of this Conference were Ilona Ustinova (the methodologist of Daugavpils Education Department) and Oksana Deica -LATE board member responsible for Latgale.
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