Cambridge CAE Certificates with the highest grades


Cambridge CAE certificate for June exams 2015 have finally arrived! After many years of invested efforts, Lingva students Sofija Rajković and Marijana Janković have realized one of their biggest dreams – not only have they passed the exam but they have also got the the highest grade, A, which means that their knowledge of English language is already at the upmost, C2 level, according to CEFR for languages. Congratulations to these extraordinary girls on their enormous success! We know that for them this diploma will open the doors of the most prestigious world organisations in their future careers.

Lingva Teacher Completed Trainer Development Course

Lingva teacher Katarina Andrić presenting at Trainer Development Course at British Council Belgrade, June 2015
Lingva teacher Katarina Andrić presenting at Trainer Development Course at British Council Belgrade, June 2015

From February to June, Lingva teacher Katarina Andrić attended The Trainer Development Course organised by the British Council and financed jointly by the participant herself and Lingva School. The course is designed for teachers who want to make transition from teacher to trainer and it comprised of seven workshops during which the participants learnt how to create and deliver effective and succesful workshops.

At the end of the course, each participant prepared a presentation followed by feedback and discussion. Katarina held a workshop titled Using Songs in ELT ( Using Songs with Teenagers). The goals of Katarina’s workshop were to identify important criteria in choosing songs and experiment with different activities connected with using songs. At the end participants gave their opinion of the workshop. They gave very positive comments stating that “it was very practical”, “versatile and useful” and that they were “looking forward to using those ideas in their classroom”. Some participants said they felt “ inspired “ and they all wished Katarina “ to keep up with the good work”.

This has been a natural step for Katarina to take in her continuing professional development. It is the policy of Lingva school within its high quality assurance plan to constantly support its teachers in their professional career development through a systematic implementation of YALS Teacher Training and Development Scheme, which includes regular mentoring, peer observation, Lingva in-house workshops, and international seminars and conferences organised by YALS, ELTA and the British Council.

22nd LINGVA Workshop on LEGO Language Teaching

22nd Lingva Workshop on LEGO Language Teaching
22nd Lingva Workshop on LEGO Language Teaching

After finishing teaching for this school year, Lingva teachers had an opportunity to run an inhouse workshop on integrating LEGO constructions into language teaching. It was our 22nd inhouse workshop titled Help Me Build My Story! Creating Picture Books, Comics and News Stories with LEGO Elements. Continuing its policy of continuing investment into the cutting edge teaching equipment and aids, Lingva has recently purchased an innovative educational Lego pack with expansion sets, together with respective software, aimed at boosting motivation of our young students for language learning and improving speaking and writing skills. The worskhop was set up and run by Marija Milovanović, Marija Matić and Mirjana Ljiljak-Vukajlović, and other teachers contributed to the activities with plenty of creative details for story “building”.

Lingva Teacher at 4th TEYL Conference in Jagodina

On 5th and 6th June 2015 Lingva teacher Lora Petronić Petrović presented the paper “Performance-based and authentic assessment for Cambridge YLE Starters Exam” at the 4th International Conference Teaching English to Young Learners: Assessment and Learning organised by the Faculty of Education in Jagodina, University of Kragujevac. The conference was dedicated to various aspects of assessment in TEYL. The presenters from 13 countries – Great Britain, the USA, Sweden, Poland, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of Macedonia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Germany and Serbia took part in it.
The plenary speakers at the conference were Professors Marianne Nikolov, PhD, University of Pecs, Hungary, Jelena Mihaljević Djigunović, PhD, University of Zagreb, Croatia, JoAnn (Jodi) Crandall, PhD, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA, and Shelagh Rixon, PhD, University of Warwick, UK.

Excellent Results of Cambridge Young Learners’ Exams 2015

IMG_5400 [1024x768]

It took less than a month since taking Cambridge Young Learners Exams, on 24 May this year, to receive the impatiently awaited results. On 19 June, Starters, Movers and Flyers gathered at Lingva again, for the 16th year in a row, for the Cambridge Young Learners of English Certificate Award ceremony. Our waiting was rewarded much better than we had expected! There was a much higher number of candidates winning the individual maximum of 15 little coats each for the skills of reading and writing, listening and speaking than in any of the previous years. Especially happy were the Flyers, whose group average was 14 coats. Once again we could see for ourselves that it pays off to work hard and at the end of the ceremony we proudly posed with our certificates for a group photo. This is good news to share through online social media with our friends who are currently on holiday away from Valjevo and were not able to attend the award ceremony.

Our Best Friends

Capture kids

Our best friends like going for a walk, especially to the river Gradac, but when they go to school they prefer to go by car. They also like hanging out with friends, telling jokes, computer games and all kinds of music.


David Lukić, Filip Tomić, Filip Petrović, Jelena Perić, Uroš Uverić, Mililca Mitrović, Sofija Belušević with teacher Marija Milovanović

My World: My Best Friend Filip by David L. and Filip T.
My world: My Best Friend Milica by Sofija B. and Jelena P.
My World: My Best Friend Jana by Milica M.
My World: Our Best Friend Filip by Filip P. and Uroš U.

Work and Education Vocabulary

8562448300_0c2c785096_h
In our present C1 course we have had to cope with a large amount of challenging new vocabulary items and most of the time practised it by describing personally relevant experiences. We have also tried to design some interactive activities and keep them permanently recorded to the web
so that we could go back to them from time to time and revise useful words and phrases, in this case connected to the topics of work and education.

Finding a Job Vocabulary by Marijana Janković

Feelings of Learners by Ana Petrović

Job Interview Vocabulary by Milica Milisavljević

Integrating Immigrants Vocabulary by Tamara Šarčević

Lingva Phrasal Verbs: Relationships by Mirjana Ljiljak-Vukajlović

25th Lingva Anniversary

lingva anniversary photo

Since it was founded on 24 April 1990, Lingva has applied high quality standards and innovative approaches in language teaching/learning. Harmonization with European standards was performed in its first years of operation owing to its membership in YALS Association of Language Schools of Serbia. We have achieved very good cooperation with both domestic and foreign institutions, such as the Institute for Advancement of Education and the British Council, through both our own or joint projects with other schools and non-governmental organisations.

As early as 1995, Lingva integrated computer-aided learning activities into its curriculum, which was soon followed by a systematic use of multimedia projects, supported by the internet, IWB and mobile digital devices. Although the low profitability of the core educational activity has frequently necessitated use of additional translation income to support financing of new technologies, Lingva has never regretted making investments in expensive equipment since the attractiveness, topicality and relevance of the teaching content, along with the teachers’ enthusiasm, have always resulted in better motivation and more successful language acquisition. The plan for the next period is integration of interactive Lego Education systems, which are specially designed to stimulate curiosity, creativity and critical thinking as the necessary tools for effective lifelong learning.

In addition to general and special-purpose language courses, Lingva organises preparation for internationally recognized Cambridge and TOEFL exams. It has been the only school in Valjevo since 2000 to prepare 16 generations of 7 to 12 year old children for Cambridge Young Learners’ exams. All of this has contributed to high language proficiency levels of Lingva school leavers. It is exactly for this reason that many former Lingva students of different profiles have easily found employment all over the world. Numerous former Lingva students are studying to become or already work as language teachers, and some have come back to Lingva to apply the same methods as those through which they were once taught foreign languages.

Lingva Animal Presentations

We did some research on the web and found out that the black caiman lives in fresh water and is most active at night, the Indian walkingstick insect can be as much as 8 cm and the harpy eagle 86 cm long, and that the Siberian husky lives in the Arctic, in extremely cold weather, down to -75°F.
Primary A2.c students Anđela Bojičić, Marko and Matija Radovanović, Luka Pavlović, Luka Jakovljević & Lazar Milojević, with the little help from their teacher Katarina Andrić

Black Caiman by Anđela Bojičić

Indian Walkingstick and Harpy Eagle by Marko and Matija Radovanović

Black Caiman & Siberian Husky by Luka Pavlović, Luka Jakovljević & Lazar Milojević