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.
You are welcome to register on workdays
from 09.00 to 12.00 a.m. and from 04.00 to 09.00 p.m.
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.
The programs conducted by Lingva Language School are not affiliated, sponsored, or endorsed by LEGO® Education or the LEGO® Group.
— 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.
Our weekends are usually very quiet becuse we are all relaxed , but from time to time little mishaps happen and disturb our peace. They can give us a bit of a fright, such as when we come across a snake in the countryside, make us a little sad if somebody falls down and hurt themselves, but very often we are amuzed and have a good laugh when animals or people bungle things and cause a great commotion. Here are short news stories with lego brick illustrations about our last weekend of summer holiday. Teacher Marija Milovanović helped us in creating them.
My Last Weekend by Jelena Perić & Sofija Belušević
My Last Weekend by Luka Vujić and Milica Mitrović
My Last Weekend by Filip Tomić and Lazar Branković
My Last Weekend by Uroš Uverić, David Lukić & Filip Petrović
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.
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”.
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.
![IMG_5400 [1024x768]](https://lingva.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG_5400-1024x768.jpg)
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.
