English Book Clubs

Dear readers,

I would like to inform you about two events of our Language Exchange Programme: the English Book Club and the Silent Book Club, both open to the public.

The English Book Club has been running for about a year and a half now. We are a group of 10 members meeting once a week in a hybrid setting: university students meet in person in a room opposite my office, external guests can join us through an online platform called Kumospace.

Each session is divided into two parts: the first 30 minutes are dedicated to the book we are currently reading, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. We have a reading schedule and members have to read a certain number of chapters per week. During each session, we discuss the assigned reading material and its content and I answer any questions may arise. Any members who have not managed to read the chapters before a specific session can choose to join us in the second part to avoid any spoilers.

In the second part we organize various activities, for example a quiz or reading a short story or text. Texts are selected through voting in class or polls in our web page, an online group on the Goodreads website. Some time ago, we read “Marionettes, Inc” by Ray Bradbury during the session and we have just started listening to the first chapter of an audiobook available for free in YouTube, “Animal Farm” by George Orwell.

Last but not least, we are working on the production of audio material for an episode of our university podcast. The idea is to record two or three dialogues from famous books (for example, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, The Wizard of Oz). We are now in the process of selecting the dialogues and then we’ll assign roles and try to record the dialogues on a file, which will then be sent to the organizers of the podcast. We hope to be able to publish our episode at the end of March, just before the summer semester starts.

The Silent Book Club is something completely different: members meet (for the moment, only online) and chat for about 20 to 30 minutes about any books they have been reading. Then the silent reading session starts: each member picks up their own book and starts reading quietly. An hour later, they come back together again and each member tells the group about their reading experience, paying attention not to reveal any spoilers, in case others are also interested in reading that particular book.

The Silent Book Club can be very helpful for those who are not in the habit of reading and want to develop it as a new hobby or also for people who lack motivation and discipline for reading. A well-structured and social event like this can provide you with a wonderful opportunity to socialize, discuss books and literature with other members and find the time to read your own books.

I would like to thank the London Silent Book Club on the Meetup website for allowing me to host a separate session for our students. For the moment, due to the fact that the winter semester has ended and we are now in the exam period, there are no students attending it, also because it was advertised just a few weeks ago. We hope that more students will join us when the summer semester starts in April. The idea is then to organize a session in presence outdoors at the same time of the current online one.

Both groups are open to the public. If you are interested in taking part in any of them, please contact me through Facebook or at pecchia@hs-nordhausen.de and I will give you the necessary information and weblinks. For the moment, The English Book Club takes place every Tuesday at 6 pm and the Silent Book Club takes place every Friday at 7 pm.

Interviews

Dear readers,

I would like to report about an activity I recently carried out with some of my students. In my English first semester course for students of pedagogy and of social work there are three main topics: general health, academic life and communication at work. As they have to give presentations at the end of the course, I had to find topics they could choose from for their final exam, and I selected the following: national health systems, national school systems, universities, healthy lifestyle and business etiquette. I also wanted to give my students the chance to meet people from other countries and cultures and exchange information and experiences, so one day I had the idea to organize interviews about the course topics and invited some acquaintances of mine to a meetup in a cafè where my students could ask them questions about the main course topics and have a chat in an informal and relaxed environment. This event took place in May 2018.

This year I had a similar idea: if we can`t meet up in cafè, why not invite people who come from or live in other countries and meet up in an online environment? So, I invited two friends from Italy, one from Australia who lives in Germany and also my sister, who lives in London. Moreover, a student of ours asked an Indian Master student if he wanted to take part, too. We had four interviews on four different days and some of my students participated to the event and were able to ask questions about some course topics. The course program is the same as last time, so the topics were the national health system, the national school system and business etiquette.

The platform we used for this activity is the same we use at university for our classes: Big Blue Button. Here`s an edited snapshot of the event:

Our guests really enjoyed the experience a lot, as did my students, who also managed to gather information that may be useful for their exam presentations. I will definitely organize interviews and similar online events next semester as well, but with some due adjustments and improvements, like a more accurate booking system where the students can register for the single events and some more incentives to motivate more students to take part.

I suppose the biggest issue was the time our students spend in front of a computer: at the moment all classes take place online, so I fully understand if many of them chose not to take part to these extracurricular online events after having had courses for the whole day from 8 am to 5 pm. We hope that the next summer semester will not be again completely online but for the moment we just have to wait and see.

I am already planning a few activities for the summer semester: some online events and some other outdoor ones. The topics will be different, of course but I think it`s important to keep these intercultural activities going and offer them as often as possible.

Stay tuned: in the next article I`ll inform you about our activities for the Language Exhchange Programme.

Tips for language learning

Dear readers,

here are some important tips on how to learn a language:

1. Practice: a language can only be learnt by using it constantly, so find a way to practice it a little every day.
2. Fun: language learning can be boring but can also be a lot of fun: try to do the things you like most in a foreign language, like watching films, playing games, even listening to music if you then read and try to understand the text. So find fun activities that you like doing and try to do them in your second or third language, also without any expectations, just for fun.
3. Technology: nowadays it’s a lot easier to learn a language due to new applications and software that can help you to organize and monitor your progress, memorize and learn vocabulary, improve your skills. Even social networks can be of help.
4. Communication: find people you can talk to in a foreign language, use your language skills to get to know other cultures, go to chat rooms for language learning, attend language exchange meetups and events, even practice together with your fellow students and teacher!
5. Passive skills: even if you don’t produce much language by writing and speaking, you can learn a lot by using your passive skills: listening, reading, watching. You can listen to news radio channels, for example or read articles online or watch a documentary. Don’t worry if you don’t understand much of it at first, most important is the practice. Understanding comes with time.
6. Aims: find reasons why you practice a foreign language, set up a list of aims, motivation is essential.

In the next articles I will inform you on tools and resources that you can use to improve your learning process.

Stay tuned!