LET’S MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE!
“Let’s make the world a better place to live in!” — that is the motto of my English classes. My students and pupils, while learning English, keep training their skills in order to contribute to the benefit of the community. Today, it's still interesting to watch the video projects that my students and I prepared several years ago. Now, my graduates have become top-notch experts in their fields. I am so proud of them!
HOW TO OVERCOME THE INSTANT GRATIFICATION MONKEY
Have you ever tried to avoid doing important and urgent work just because it is important and urgent? Of course, you have! Perhaps even at this moment you are browsing my page instead of reading an important article, writing an exam essay, or getting rid of the old papers from your desk drawers. This "activity" has an impressive name: "Procrastination." Students and schoolchildren suffer the most from it. That is why the group of my students took on the research of this sophisticated issue. You too can learn a lot of new and interesting things from their engaging and hilarious video projects.
THE VOYAGE TO TERRA AUSTRALIS
This is one of my favourite projects – an international area studies contest in English, devoted to Australia and covering the culture, history, and amazing artefacts of this mysterious country. Thanks to distance learning technologies and our enthusiasm, the vast distance between Russia and Australia did not prevent the participants from meeting up online and creating a friendly community of like-minded people. The contest was supported by the Australian Embassy and personally by Ms. Margaret Twomey, the Ambassador to the Russian Federation. Our partner from the Australian side was the University of Queensland. The participants were delighted to discover the world of Australia, interact with new friends, and create unique projects that were awarded by great prizes.
ONLINE-FARMER
In the world of language teaching, the communicative approach is very popular. However, most often students simply act out dialogues based on ‘real-life situations’, and, to be honest, it comes out rather unnatural. My group of students went further – towards the so-called "case study" and together we helped our acquaintance, a young entrepreneur, create an English advertisement for his mobile app, which helps gardeners share their abundant crops with neighbours. We designed the ads, filmed and edited them ourselves. For me, it is very important to teach students practical skills of language use letting them have a lot of ‘field practice’.
FEELING STRONGLY ABOUT THIS WORLD
My aim in teaching students the English language is not only explaining to them vocabulary and grammar rules and telling them about literature, art, history, and geography of English-speaking countries. Being flexible and open to the challenges of the modern world, my students also teach me a lot. They react to the changes in society faster and more vividly, and they are aware of everything new. For example, my second-year university students brought up the issue of "healthy eating" and created video tutorials on the subject. They did an amazingly creative and rewarding job.
ALL ABOARD!
We were working on the video with a pirate story for an online English competition with a small but enthusiastic team, starring Keith Rowson-Jones – our dear Russian Englishman. You can even hear the school bell ringing, but we managed to create the atmosphere no worse than the director of the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean"!
You too can benefit from this exercise! If you are a teacher, play the video for your school students and practice listening and writing skills – according to the task in the clip description.
If you are a learner of English, enjoy the performance by Keith and try to answer the final, creative question! Send your answers to me via the contact icons on the site!
ALL THE WORLD IS A STAGE…
It was a real adventure! I came up with the idea of holding an online linguistic competition about English theatre for students of the humanities, and I decided to make video questions based on the programme of "University Challenge".
So the shooting of the videos took place in London's West End. The questions were recorded by my best friend Anthony Jones who recited excerpts from the wonderful works of English authors, so the tasks themselves have great cultural significance. Someday I will write a collection of funny stories about the backstage of our amateur filming. In the meantime, I invite the visitors of this page to answer our questions from the videos. Send your answers to me via the contact icons on the site!
MURDER MYSTERY
My fifteen years of teaching at the university's law faculty were anything but boring! With my law students we discussed a wide range of issues: from death penalty to the legal aspects of human cloning, from breach of privacy to Dr. Kevorkian’s "humane euthanasia". Oh, those heated debates… it was smoking hot in the classroom! And when we wanted to have some fun, we were solving tricky "criminal" puzzles based on English history, culture, and literature. In this video you can see our incomparable and artistic Russian Englishman Keith Rowson-Jones. Are you up for such a puzzle? Send your answers to me via the contact icons on the site!
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
IN THE HEART OF FOGGY ALBION…
I always discuss all my creative projects with my best friends and co-authors. https://www.justrussian.com/ Thanks to their feedback and constructive criticism, new ideas are born and are tested ‘in the field. And, of course, it is very important to have a reliable partner in the very heart of sunny London!
FIRST WEBSITE
www.just-english.ru is my very first project and my most beloved one! Many years ago, I created a website for interactive communication between students and teachers of my university. It included excerpts from my textbooks, a dictionary of legal terms, the links to websites with useful cultural information, and even the pages with students’ funny bloopers. My favourite are still the pages with brilliant essays by my students on various topics and, of course, the pages of our glorious area studies competitions. I visit this good old site with pleasure and nostalgia. Check it out too!