This week speaking club sessions were on Monday and Thursday with lots of activities, topics discussions and fun. On Monday we talked about money 💰 and what we are good at - saving or spending 🧐. We also learned some useful phrasal verbs and idioms.

                                  

                                       

On Thursday we discussed some everyday problems that happen all the time in our life + plus we learned how to give advice in English. 

Some great websites such as #bamboozle , #wordwall and #youtube make English practice exciting and interesting.

"I have a Dream"

Martin Luther King Jr. was an American activist who became the visible spokesman and leader in the civil rights movement and becauseof him there is a federal holiday in the USA, which is observed on the third Monday of January each year. 

Thus, January 18 Window on America Center for Future Leaders held a meeting of English Speaking Practice which we dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We looked through the history of this holiday in the USA and discussed questions like “How can we fight against unfair treatment today?” and “What is freedom for you” which are still very important to think a out. We also watched a short video clip of Martin’s famous speech “I have a dream” and shared our own ideas to this topic. Most of people said that their dream was to have peace in the world and find some cancer and COVID 19 treatments.  

Let's Talk English

Online meetings of English Speaking Club are always held on Mondays and Thursdays at 4pm. It's a great opportunity to improve English with native speakers, volunteers from the United States, Great Britain and Canada. 

This week Window on America Center for Future Leaders had two English Practices. On Monday, May 25th, we talked about "People around the world". And the first question we discussed was if we ever judge people on their looks and if we notice such things as tattoos, body piersing, makeup etc. After the discussion we learned some useful phrases like "to deal with someone", "to put up with", "get along with", "to butter someone up", "to sweet talk someone", "to comfort someone", "to keep to oneself", "to put someone down". 

Thursday meeting we dedicated to memories. Our visitors were given some introduction questions related to the topic and after that we played a game called “Positive , Negative and Crazy ” where the participants chose an option and the rest group gave them a theme to jog their memories. It was fun when people started to remenisce their past and tried to remember different parts of their life and share them with others.

Join our meetings and learn English with pleasure. 

English Speaking Practice

Last Monday and Thursday Window on America Center for Future Leaders gathered its members online from different countries to speak English and have fun 🤩. We were glad to meet people from Kazakhstan, Canada, Cambodia, The USA, Great Britain, Thailand and Ukraine. It was a memorable experience to get to know so many interesting people and improve our English! The game “5 words” helped us to speak a lot and ask each other different questions. In this game, our visitors had to describe their perfect day using only 5 words and after that the rest group had to ask questions regarding each word. It was a great way to get to know each other better. If you would like to improve your English and hear different accents join our online meetings every Monday and Thursday!

Discover America

Young readers of the Kherson Oblast Library for Children visited Window on America Center for Future Leaders yesterday to increase their knowledge about the USA. We played a board game “50-star game land: Discover America” which was designed by librarians. To find out more interesting facts about the United States children answered different questions on 5 categories such as nature, history, inventions, culture and disneyland. Besides questions visitors also looked at the US map and found different states on it. At the end of the game we also had 3 winners who got small presents - notepads and pens with WOA logo on them. Hope this game helped our readers to find out something new about the USA.  

The Art of Photography

Photography has become really popular in the art world so Window on America Center for Future Leaders Kherson decided to discuss this topic yesterday during the English Speaking Club's meeting. We looked through some types of photography and discussed our favorite ones. 

We are really thankful to Connelly Molnar, our American friend for sharing his amazing pictures (he is very good at it 👌) and the opportunity to see beautiful places across the United States. 

We’ll definitely continue talking about this topic so don’t miss a chance to join our next meeting and share your thoughts.

Let's Talk about... the future

Another great session of English Speaking Club was yesterday where we continued discussing the future. But at the beginning our visitors made choices between two different items like tea or coffee, sun or snow, early mornings or late mornings etc. and explained their choices. After that we all got to know new phrases for taking about the future. Here’s the list of them :

- it will happen any minute now;

- it’s just around the corner;

- near future;

- in our lifetime;

- it’s a sign of things to come;

- I’m counting days until...;

- sooner or later; 

- I’ll get around to it;

- I’ll do it right away; 

- Time will tell. 

And then we did a fun activity “What happens next” trying to guess the end of the stories. Join us to practice your #english because there you can hear the language from the native speakers.

Time will Tell

The great start of a new year and english speaking club that was held on January, 4th. Window on America for Future Leaders Kherson met its visitors via zoom. As a "Warm up activity" Anna Reznik, the facilitator of the club chose “Two truths and a lie“ where everyone should have told about his celebrations of the New Year. Then we shared our New Year’s Resolutions with each other and discussed some questions ⁉️. After that we found out the difference between "Make and Do" verbs and learned some really useful expressions. Thank our American friend who helped us to improve our English. 

 

Let's reflected on 2020

On Monday, December 28th Window on America for Future Leaders Kherson had an English Speaking Practice where we gathered for the last time in 2020. We all reflected on year that passes and shared the most memorable moments of it with each other. But of course there was something that we all regretted in some way so we learned how to use "Wish: expressing regret". Firstly we looked at the grammar rules and then practiced them doing a "Photocaption activity". We also made up a story which is one of our favorites. It is a great way to improve our speaking. Thank all our friends from the United States, Kazakhstan and different Ukrainian cities (Lviv, Kharkiv, Kherson) for participating. See you all next year 😊.

Holiday Celebrarions

There’s one good thing about online English practices and that is meeting people from different cities and even countries. Yesterday, Window on America for Future Leaders Kherson met visitors from Kharkiv, Dnipro, Kazakhstan and the Netherlands. We all gathered via Zoom and had a great opportunity to practice our English with native speakers, our friends from America. We did the activity called "Christmas brainstorming" where we went through some categories such as Food, Decorations, Traditions and Christmas problems that can appear during the holiday season. It was also exciting to compare the celebrations of Christmas around the world and share some our vivid memories with each other. Thank you all for participating and having a great time together. See you on Monday at 4pm.

Holiday season is coming...

Thanksgiving Day is only in a week but active members of English Speaking Club started to talk about this holiday today. Window on America Center for Future Leaders invited American volunteers to join the English practice in order to know more about the most popular holidays of America and their traditions and about the United States in general. We discussed and compared our favorite feast meals, holiday activities and family challengies that sometimes occur during holidays. We also had time to ask and answer questions just to get to know each other better.

The Countries We Live in

Yesterday Ukraine celebrated its holiday so this session of English Speaking Club Window on America Center for Future Leaders dedicated to the topic “The Countries we live in”. We started with an activity “My country” where all members of the club said one sentence about Ukraine one by one. After that we discussed our opinions about the two countries: the USA and Ukraine and then compared their lifestyles. And of course we had a chance to dream while we made up story about our perfect vacation. Overall it was a nice club where we spoke English a lot with American volunteers that helped us to improve it.

The US Independence

Every year Window on America Center for Future Leaders has meetings dedicated to "The 4th of July" and this year was no exception but it was in a different format - we had an online meeting of English Speaking Club where we talked a lot about the USA Independence Day. Thanks to american volunteers  who helped us to learn more about this holiday, its traditions and activities that are popular on this day! The participants also compared traditions of celebration the Independence Day in the United States and Ukraine. At the end we played "Taboo" game which was fun because we had to explain the words about America without saying any unmentionables words.

Transportation in a Pandemic

On June 02, 2020 Window on America Center for future leaders held an online English Speaking Club dedicated to "Transportation 🚢✈️🚆🚖 in Pandemic time". We discussed different questions and found out if our participants’ habits have changed through the quarantine. Some of our visitors started to walk 🚶‍♀️a lot or ride their bikes 🚲. Then we had a “Debate” activity where we all were divided into two groups and said our arguments about advantages and disadvantages of using cars 🚘🚖. At the end we played a "Guessing" game where everyone got a card with the topic and then explained the meaning of 6 words in it. Thanks to our friends from the United States for helping us to improve our English. Join us next Tuesday on skype at 2 pm.

Food and Art

What do food and art have in common? To find out the answer Window on America Center for Future Leaders gathered on an online meeting active members of English Speaking club. As warm up activity we answered some questions about Food 🌮🍱🍣🍤🥡 and Art 🎧🎭🎨🎬. So we tried to find the connection of these two terms. We also shared some pictures of Food Art . To practice our speaking skills we played "Small Talk" where we gave different situation on the topic. 

#amspacesathome

Family is Evertything

There are two holidays celebrated in May which are connected to Family - they are "Mother's Day and Family Day 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦. That’s why Window on America for future leaders Kherson dedicated online meeting of English Speaking Club to our FAMILIES. We started with an Ice-breaker “2 truths and a lie” where we said 3 statements about family where 1 was a lie. Then we discussed some questions and shared the traditions that are popular in our families. In order to practice our english we did an activity "Small talk" where we had only 2 minutes to get to know more about each family. And as usual American volunteers helped us to facilitate this meeting. We hope to see you all in the Kherson Library for Children as soon as we can but for now join us through the skype on Tuesday at 2pm.

Time + Daily Routines

Learning English through different activities is much better especially if you do this activities with native speakers. Yesterday active members of Cool Speaking club came to Window on America center for future leaders to improve their english with american volunteers who help us in leading this club. We chose the topic "Time" to discuss and started with Questions Challenge. Then, we practiced the Adverbs of frequency doing the Rotating lines activity so all visitors could talk to each other. Also we looked through some Idioms about time and of course we worked in groups and discussed different questions.

Let's talk about Reading

Do you still read books? Our visitors of Cool Speaking club still do it and yesterday they came to Window on America center for future leaders to talk about this topic. We started with "Stand Up/ Sit Down" activity where our guests, native speakers from the United States said a statement and if it applied to anybody they should have stood up.

 Then we watched a video “Why reading is important” and after that all the visitors, working in groups, made a list of some benefits of reading. 

Then we discussed some questions playing the game “4 corners debate” which was really fun and all shared their opinions if they agreed or disagreed with some of the statements. At the end we played another fun and popular game kahoot.

American Life

Sometimes it seems to us that we know a lot about the United States of America but working with native speakers we usually get more information about it. And yesterday, February 27 members of Kherson Speaking Club came to Window on America Center for future leaders on a meeting with Peace Corps Volunteer Nina Jackson. We had a really good activity where Nina wrote some questions which were asked by our visitors about the United States and Ukraine. Then we had a chance to compare these two countries. At the end we looked through the some of  American Stereotypes and discussed wheather it’s true or false.