UK 
The year 2020 is coming to an end... And with it, the first four months of our new project Library English Studio for children and teenagers "English without restrictions" have come to an end.
The pandemic has become a challenge for the whole world this year. She did not miss us either, demanding a complete reformatting of our project under certain limited conditions. But we did it, and the effort spent became a very interesting and exciting experience for us.
We held 32 classes, created a Facebook group, talked with American volunteers and not only that, we started learning slang words that are not in English dictionaries, and also received incredibly pleasant positive feedback from both parents and directly from the participants. All our meetings were thematic, and every time the children had the opportunity to get completely new and interesting information.
For example, the last two meetings of the library's English language studio "English without restrictions" before the winter vacation were devoted to the New Year and Christmas theme. At the first, we listened to the correct pronunciation of words, read the text and translated modern songs into English ("All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey, "Christmas is All Around You" by Dua Lipa), and also read American classics of children's literature, which won the Caldecott Medal, "The Polar Express" by Chris Van Allsburg. And although some participants saw the film based on the book, the text seemed quite difficult for us. Therefore, we translated every word of the story, delving into its English version.
Although we worked diligently for 4 months, next year 2021 we should continue our work on improving the English language.
As for the second meeting, we finished watching the movie "Home Alone", because this movie for many in the world is a symbol of the beginning of New Year's holidays, an interesting and fun New Year's modern fairy tale. We summarized our lessons and got a good result - the participants of the studio sufficiently replenished their vocabulary with words that are almost impossible to find in textbooks, but quite often they occur in the everyday language of Americans.
Also, the children shared their successes outside the studio, pointing to a significant improvement in school grades, better perception and understanding of the original language by ear. Classes in the English language studio enabled children to change their attitude to learning English, to realize its usefulness and necessity in the modern world, and stimulated the desire to acquire new knowledge! We regard this as a real achievement!
Our project was created thanks to the support of the US Embassy in Ukraine. It is gaining momentum. During this time, a great deal of painstaking work has been carried out, many new modern English-language books have been purchased for the library with grant funds, which every visitor to our library will be able to view as early as February 2021. Learning new things with the help of English-language songs, meeting with volunteers - participants and scholars of the Fulbright and FLEX programs, watching cartoons and films in the original language, as well as thematic discussions of American holidays - this is only an incomplete list of useful activities during the work of the studio. Such a result encourages us to continue the project. And from January 12, 2021 (right after the winter holidays), our online meetings will continue.
We wish everyone happy holidays, good rest, and after the winter holidays we are waiting for you again!
If you are not with us yet, join our classes as soon as possible via the link: