Author: Mirjana Ljiljak-Vukajlović

Presentations by Lingva Students of Technical English: Graphene

A dilligent group of Lingva students of Technical English at B2.a level from the Gorenje company has recently given presentations on a miraculous graphene material, for which two scientists, Geim and Novoselov won the Nobel prize in Physics in 2010. Graphene caught attention of several groups of scientits in Serbia as well, and Novak Đoković has been using racquets reinforced with graphene, which makes them lighter and more durable than rackets used to date. Vesna Kosovec, Dalibor Andrić, Vasilije Andrić and Vlada Petrović have made interesting presentations in which each of them, from their own perspective, pointed out countless advantages of this material of the future.

Graphene presentation by Vasilije Andrić

Graphene presentation by Dalibor Andrić

Graphene presentation by Vesna Kosovec

Graphene presentation by Vlada Petronijević

What Helps My Team Learn Better

In March this year Lingva Business English students at C1.b level from Gorenje took part in the multimedia project “What Helps My Team Learn Better“, one part of which refers to giving a presentation about a hobby or topic they are personally interested in and designing activities that will engage the most frequent multiple intelligences of the group in the best possible way. All of these student-made English learning activities are aimed at extending the scope of the given course syllabus with additional language practice, closely tailored to the needs of students. The diligent students did their best!

1. Learning to Sew & Something Else Presentation by Jelena Nikolic
2. Basketball – Healthy Lifestyle by Natasa Isailovic
3. Sport Marksmanship by Ivana Urosevic

Nobody compares to them

The best singers for us are Ariana, Selena, Shakira and Taylor. Ariana has the nicest voice and Selena is the most beautiful without makeup. Taylor is fitter than Ariana and Shakira is the fittest.
Not only do we like football but we play it as well. Our favourite players are Messi, Neymar and Ronaldo. Ronaldo’s muscles are bigger than Messi’s, Messi’s muscles are bigger than Neymar’s, but Neymar is taller than Messi, and Messie is more popular than Ronaldo.
Our favourite basketball players are LeBron and Curry. LeBron is older, stronger and taller than Curry, but Curry is better at basketball than LeBron. Curry is the best player in the world.

We made these beautiful posters with the help of our teacher Ivana Lazić.

Messi and Neymar

by Stefan Anicic and Vojin Aleksic

LeBron James and Curry

by Strahinja Simic, Viktor Manic and Pavle Rankovic

LE Bron James and Stephen Curry

by Vuk Ilic and Petra Nemeshajmer

Ariana, Selena and Shakira

by Ana Dobric, Andrijana Radic and Masa Kragovic

Ronaldo and Messi

by Andrej Pantelic, Ivan Markovic and Lazar Maletic

Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift

by Nina Peric and Petra Maksimovic

Famous Serbian Historic Figures

Višegrad Bridge
Višegrad Bridge by Lingva Valjevo

Exploring the information about famous Serbian historical figures, together with our teacher Katarina Andrić, we found out many diverse interests and occupations of, first of all, Milutin Milanković, who explained why and how ice ages occurred in the geological past of the Earth, and which climate changes can be expected on it in the future, as well as even more famous Nikola Tesla, who created one of the world’s first wireless remote control and wanted to produce free electrical power for the whole world. We also described two men of letters – Vuk Stafanović Karadžić, whose parents named him Vuk („Wolf“) so that evil spirits would not hurt him and who had such an excellent memory that he was able to write a book of over 100 lyrical and epic poems he memorized as a child, and Ivo Andrić, Croatian by origin, who in his youth was a member of several South Slav organisations that opposed the Austro-Hungarian occupation, and who became 1961 Nobel prize laureate in literature “for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country”.

Milutin Milankovic by Jelisaveta Maksimovic and Bogdan Radojicic

Milutin Milankovic Film Presentation

Nikola Tesla by Marija Djukic and Ognjen Stanojlovic

Nikola Tesla Film Presentation

Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic by Andjela Miskovic and Aleksandar Trifkovic

Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic Film Presentation

Ivo Andric by Natalija Nedeljkovic and Nikola Lukic

Ivo Andric Film Presentation

23rd Lingva In-house Workshop: Writing Assessment Standardisation

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In accordance with the needs analysis of Lingva English language teachers, the 23rd in-house workshop was dedicated to writing assessment. A similar workshop was held On 18t February 2011 with some of the teachers attending both of these events.

Being one of the two most elusive and difficult areas for assessment, besides the speaking skills, since no black-and-white criteria can be set as in the case of listening, grammar and vocabulary, language teachers always appreciate efforts to practice assessment and marking. It is also beneficial for our language school to improve quality and consistency of writing assessment in order to ensure unifed and fair school assessment procedures for young adult and adult groups.

In the first session, teachers brushed up their knowledge of overall CEFR written assessment criteria and then familiarized themselves with the relatively new Cambridge Writing Assessment (sub)scales, first of all four subscales referenced to CEFR level descriptors: Content, Communicative Achievement, Organisation and Language. Special attention was given to clarifying the meaning of specific criteria in each of the subscales. In the second session, teachers were given samples of written students work at B1 and A2 levels to rate them individually and in pairs, which was followed by the whole group discussion. On this occasion, too, agreement was the highest in rating the language, while communicative achievement marks required more harmonizing.The session was ended by agreeing on the exact sets of criteria that will be used uniformly by all teachers for progress test and final exam assessment at each of language proficiency levels.

The workshop was prepared and facilitated by Mirjana Ljiljak-Vukajlović. The next workshop, which will focus on speaking assessment standardisation, will be held in June.

Experience Sharing between YALS Member Schools

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Three teachers from Tom & Emma School, Belgrade – Milana Papić, Jelena Mitrović, and Sofija Ljiljak-Vukajlovića visited Lingva last Thursday, 10 March, to see how LEGO® bricks and StoryStarter educational programme are used for foreign language learning in our school. They enjoyed working with our young learners on the activities designed by teacher Katarina Andrić at A2.c and B1.b levels, and they also had opportunity to familiarize themselves with the use of StoryVisualizer software, where they were joined by teacher Mirjana Ljiljak-Vukajlović.

The exchange was two-way – Lingva teachers learned which activities the guests had applied at Tom & Emma, and that they also had positive experience in the use of LEGO® elements with older students. The joint conclusion was that these activities exceptionally boost students’ creativity, which has a direct impact on the effectivenes of language acquisition.

It was confirmed once again that short exchange visits bring a lot of benefits to both sides and that we should continue with this good practice.

Lingva teachers at New Technologies in Education 2016 Conference

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New applications, new electronic equipment, and above all unbounded enthusiasm and new energy!
Lingva teachers Mirjana Ljiljak-Vukajlović, Katarina Andrić, Marija Milovanović i Lora Petronić-Petrović have recently had an opportunity to familiarize themselves with new possibilities of integrating multimedia in education at the New Technologies in Education 2016 Conference and Fair. The event was organized by the British Council and Serbian state institutions in Belgrade on 26 and 27 February.

Our Kitty Cats

It was finally our turn to build stories with LEGO® bricks and write about our kitty cats. They are really naughty – when they do not fight they knock down the telephone, let our kite fly away, or fall into the sea. We always have to rescue them. Naughty, naughty kitty cats!

Our teacher Milica Marić kept us company and helped a lot.

My Kitty Cat by Ema Maksimović, Dunja Jovanović, Jovana Ilić, Aleksa Stanković and Viktor Stanojević

My Kitty Cat by Vladimir Popović, Anđela Radosavljević, Eva Jezdić, Elena Panić and Matija Vukosavljević

The programs conducted by Lingva Language School are not affiliated, sponsored, or endorsed by LEGO® Education or the LEGO® Group.

Lingva teachers attend ELTA Creative Writing seminar

Lingva teachers at Creative Writing seminar

— reported by Katarina Andrić

In the month of November two Lingva teachers Lora Petronic Petrovic and Katarina Andric were a part of an online creative writing course “Small Town Stories” supported by ELTA and the American Embassy, designed for teachers who love writing. The course tutors were Nathan William Meyer, Olja Milosevic and Gordana Klasnja.

It was a four-week course designed to strengthen teachers` writing skills and encourage new approaches to language teaching. During the course, the participants had weekly writing assignments on which they got thoughtful and constructive feedback both by the course tutors and peers. Their final task was to write a short story focusing on different skills of creative writing which they acquired during the course itself. Teachers were also engaged in creating dynamic lessons plan with the aim to implement their ideas in their classroom.

The second phase of the course was Face-to-Face Workshop which was held in Vrnjacka Banja from December 11-13th. It was a great opportunity for the participants to share their ideas and practice, as well as to get valuable feedback on their stories which could help them in their future writing.

Upon the completion of the course teachers were awarded ELTA certificates. They finished the couse with a big smile on their faces because they felt it had really enhanced their creative writing.