English for All - Алексей Конобеев's Blog

Мне еще со школы нравится английская поэзия. Привлекает звучание, то, как можно спрессовать эмоции в несколько строчек, то, каким красивым становится язык. И интересно то, как меняются с веками идеалы, как новые идеи отражаются в стихах. Вот несколько стихотворений из тех, которые мне нравятся. Привожу те, на которые авторское право перешло в public domain:***Jenny Kissed Meby Leigh HuntJenny kissed me when we met, Jumping from the chair she sat in. Time, you thief! who love to get Sweets into your list, put that in. Say I'm weary, say I'm sad; Say that health and wealth have missed me; Say I'm growing old, but add- Jenny kissed me!***I Am Not Yours by Sara TeasdaleI am not yours, not lost in you,Not lost, although I long to beLost as a candle lit at noon,Lost as a snowflake in the sea.You love me, and I find you stillA spirit beautiful and bright,Yet I am I, who long to beLost as a light is lost in light.Oh plunge me deep in love -- put outMy senses, leave me deaf and blind,Swept by the tempest of your love,A taper in a rushing wind.***After Love by Sara TeasdaleThere is no magic any more,We meet as other people do,You work no miracle for meNor I for you.You were the wind and I the sea --There is no splendor any more,I have grown listless as the poolBeside the shore.But though the pool is safe from stormAnd from the tide has found surcease,It grows more bitter than the sea,For all its peace.***If you were coming in the fall,I'd brush the summer byWith half a smile and half a spurn,As housewives do a fly.If I could see you in a year,I'd wind the months in balls,And put them each in separate drawers,Until their time befalls.If only centuries delayed,I'd count them on my hand,Subtracting till my fingers droppedInto Van Diemen's land.If certain, when this life was out,That yours and mine should be,I'd toss it yonder like a rind,And taste eternity.But now, all ignorant of the lengthOf time's uncertain wing,It goads me, like the goblin bee,That will not state its sting. by Emily Dickinson***Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part,Nay, I have done: you get no more of me,And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,That thus so cleanly I myself can free.Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,And when we meet at any time againBe it not seen in either of our browsThat we one jot of former love retain.Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,When his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,And Innocence is closing up his eyes,Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.by Michael Drayton***Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett BrowningHow do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal Grace.I love thee to the level of everyday'sMost quiet need, by sun and candle-light.I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.I love thee with the passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.***NO sun--no moon!No morn--no noon!No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--No sky--no earthly view--No distance looking blue--No road--no street--no "t'other side this way"--No end to any Row--No indications where the Crescents go--No top to any steeple--No recognitions of familiar people--No courtesies for showing 'em--No knowing 'em!No traveling at all--no locomotion--No inkling of the way--no notion--"No go" by land or ocean--No mail--no post--No news from any foreign coast--No Park, no Ring, no afternoon gentility--No company--no nobility--No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,No comfortable feel in any member--No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds--November! by Thomas Hood***Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,And do not drop in for an after-loss:Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scoped this sorrow,Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,To linger out a purposed overthrow.If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,When other petty griefs have done their spiteBut in the onset come; so shall I tasteAt first the very worst of fortune's might, And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.by William Shakespeare***Rudyard KiplingRecessionalGod of our fathers, known of old-- Lord of our far-flung battle line Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine-- Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget - lest we forget!The tumult and the shouting dies; The captains and the kings depart: Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget - lest we forget!Far-called, our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire: Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget - lest we forget!If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe-- Such boasting as the Gentiles use Or lesser breeds without the law-- Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget - lest we forget!For heathen heart that puts her trust In reeking tube and iron shard-- All valiant dust that builds on dust, And guarding, calls not Thee to guard-- For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!***Not UnderstoodBy James Brunton StephensNot understood, we move along asunder; Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep Along the years; we marvel and we wonder Why life is life, and then we fall asleep Not understood. Not understood, we gather false impressions And hug them closer as the years go by; Till virtues often seem to us transgressions; And thus men rise and fall, and live and die Not understood. Not understood! Poor souls with stunted vision Oft measure giants with their narrow gauge; The poisoned shafts of falsehood and derision Are oft impelled 'gainst those who mould the age, Not understood. Not understood! The secret springs of action Which lie beneath the surface and the show, Are disregarded; with self-satisfaction We judge our neighbours, and they often go Not understood. Not understood! How trifles often change us! The thoughtless sentence and the fancied slight Destroy long years of friendship, and estrange us, And on our souls there falls a freezing blight; Not understood. Not understood! How many breasts are aching For lack of sympathy! Ah! day by day How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking! How many noble spirits pass away, Not understood. O God! that men would see a little clearer, Or judge less harshly where they cannot see! O God! that men would draw a little nearer To one another, -- they'd be nearer Thee, And understood.***Edward Rowland SillThe Fool's PrayerThe royal feast was done; the KingSought some new sport to banish care,And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"The jester doffed his cap and bells,And stood the mocking court before;They could not see the bitter smileBehind the painted grin he wore.He bowed his head, and bent his kneeUpon the monarch's silken stool;His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,Be merciful to me, a fool!"No pity, Lord, could change the heartFrom red with wrong to white as wool;The rod must heal the sin; but Lord,Be merciful to me, a fool!" 'Tis not by guilt the onward sweepOf truth and right, O Lord, we stay;'Tis by our follies that so longWe hold the earth from heaven away."These clumsy feet, still in the mire,Go crushing blossoms without end;These hard, well-meaning hands we thrustAmong the heart-strings of a friend."The ill-timed truth we might have kept-Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?The word we had not sense to say-Who knows how grandly it had rung?"Our faults no tenderness should ask,The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;But for our blunders-oh, in shameBefore the eyes of heaven we fall."Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;Men crown the knave, and scourge the toolThat did his will; but Thou, O Lord,Be merciful to me, a fool!"The room was hushed; in silence roseThe King, and sought his gardens cool,And walked apart, and murmured low,"Be merciful to me, a fool!"А вам какие стихи нравятся, на любом языке?

Недавно в Петербурге, в Кунсткамере, вспомнил я Ломоносова. Он пришел учиться в Москву из Архангельской области (назовем территорию современным именем), из Холмогор. Тогда трудно было найти университет ближе. И вспомнил я недавний разговор с коллегой на Московском педагогическом марафоне. После моего выступления в кулуарах, пока я копировал презентацию ей на флэшку, она рассказала мне, что приехала на педмарафон с границы Брянской и Орловской областей, из дома отправилась в час ночи на автобусе, в Москве была в пять утра и ждала открытия Педмарафона до 9. А потом ей предстояло возвращение назад. Еще из недавних воспоминаний: на мой семинар в Иркутске приехали несколько учителей из Братска. Я помню, что расстояние между Братской и Иркутском немалое, поэтому спросил у коллеги как далеко пришлось добираться. На что мне сказали: "да тут недалеко, километров 600-700 на машине". Учитывая, что на мой предыдущий семинар в Иркутске приехали учителя из Тайшета, до которого надо добираться на поезде 17 часов, до Братска и правда не так далеко.Получается, что за новую информацию, за учебу мы готовы отдавать свое время, силы и деньги, путешествовать на большие расстояния, а иногда отправляемся далеко, даже не будучи уверены в качестве того, что в итоге получим. Мне самому повезло: еще когда я учился в университете, у нас была программа обмена с одним британским университетом, и мне довелось по этой программе проучиться семестр в Англии, что очень помогло моему английскому. Это потом уже была диссертация, визит на целый год в американский университет на повышение квалификации (где я напросился на такое количество магистерских курсов, что знакомые американцы разводили руками и говорили: "Как ты справляешься с такой нагрузкой?", а я отвечал одно: "А мне интересно!"), но тогда, в студенческие 1990-е годы, когда экономику качало на качелях кризисов и для поездки в Англию пришлось залезть в серьезные долги, о цене учебы и расстояниях как-то и не думалось. Да и сейчас вижу подобное на своих семинарах и на вебинарах, когда люди приходят поучаствовать практически ночью, в 11 вечера по местному времени, а порой и позже. Конечно, кто-то приходит за сертификатом (например, вчера еще до начала вебинара одна участница спрашивала когда дадут сертификат). Но большинство все-таки приходит за информацией, за профессиональным общением. А вам какие трудности приходилось преодолевать ради учебы?

I have a friend who lives in Portugal. He is still at school and this year he is very upset that Portugal has not been getting any snow at all. After I talked with him several days ago I thought of what it must be like to not have any snow when you want some, and I wrote this story. Of course, the character in this story has only a few things in common with the prototype: the real Ricardo is much older, although he also loves birds and takes beautiful pictures of insects and plants in his garden. When I was writing this story I rather had a younger audience in mind, my thought only spinned off a real person. That's why the language is fairly simple here, except for the couple of conditionals I've had to use. So here it goes:

In a very warm country in the south of Europe there lived a boy who was very fond of birds, insects and plants. He dreamed of becoming a biologist when he grew up, but now he was still at school.

There was a small garden near the house where the boy lived with his father, mother and younger brother, and every morning he would go into the garden to look at the flowers and take pictures of some of the butterflies and other creatures who lived there. The herbs and the flowers were much the same as those in the neighbours’ gardens, but for some reason butterflies preferred to spend days in the boy’s garden, and in spring thrushes and nightingales would come there too. The garden stood bright and green until winter, but in winter all was brown and bare.

In winter the birds would fly away to warm African countries, the insects would hide under the ground for their long sleep and only the trees would stretch their leafless branches above the dry grass. In winter the garden looked almost uninteresting, and when the frosts came, even the trees and flowers would go to sleep. However, the boy knew that the sleep wouldn’t last long and that very soon, in a couple of months, the garden will be full of life again.

Sometimes the boy felt worried about his plants in the garden. He knew that if real frosts came, many plants could freeze to death. His was a warm country and had no snow in winter, but now and then cold winds blew and brought biting frosts with them. Frosts without snow would just kill the garden.

So winter was not a very welcome season for him. But the boy loved snow! He saw it on TV so many times! He watched films where children made snowmen and played snowballs, where the first soft snow would fall ever so quietly and stay on the grass, and cover everything in a warm, white, sparkling and fluffy blanket. But he lived in a warm and dry country and no snow ever fell there. Sometimes he despaired that he would ever see snow before he grew up and started travelling. But when he grew it wouldn’t be the same then, would it?

One December evening the boy was sitting in his room doing homework. The TV was on, and the news presenter was telling about strong winds coming fast from the Arctic. It seemed that the neighbouring countries were getting their share of snow already. The boy looked out of the window, but there was not a cloud to be seen in the pale evening sky. It didn’t look like snowing at all. He sighed, shook his head sadly and returned to his textbooks.

On the next day the air grew cold. It was not freezing yet, but the chilly wind kept getting under the boy’s jacket and his hands felt so cold when he touched the rosebush in the garden. It looked like they were going to have an unusually cold day and a frosty night. And, same as yesterday, the sky was clear with no clouds in sight.

When the boy returned from school, it had already got very cold, maybe even too cold for some of the flowers. The bushes could be covered with plastic sheets or even with old newspapers, like first flowers are covered sometimes in early spring to keep the morning chills off. But there was no way the entire garden could be covered. If it got any colder, the sap would freeze in the trees, and the ice it would turn into would break the trunks from the inside. The seeds and the flower bulbs would die too, and so would many of the hibernating insects. And in spring, when the birds fly back, they’ll find only bare lifeless trees instead of their green blooming garden. The boy looked up. The sky was still clear. The sun looked dim and distant, and the cold wind was getting stronger. In fact, it had already got so strong that it began wistling sadly in the branches.

While helping his father decorate the Christmas tree, the boy was listening to the news. There were pictures of every single neighbouring country covered with snow. The longest spells of cold weather in 29 years were reported in Britain. Snowdrifts were causing traffic congestion in France and Germany, and Spain was shivering with cold, while children there were playing snowballs. Even Italy had some snow falling, and some schools were closed much to the joy of the children there. Flights were delayed, cars couldn’t run, only the big buses connected the cities everywhere but in the boy’s country. The temperature was still going down as more cold air kept streaming in from the distant ocean in the North.

The next day was Christmas Eve, so there was no school. Instead of sleeping through half of the morning as he normally would, the boy got up even earlier than usual. He looked out and saw the car the windows of which were covered in ice. The river that he could catch a glimpse of, didn’t look as dark as yesterday. Instead it sent up white sparkles. In the night it had frozen over and the ice, although still very thin, covered it from the one bank to the other.

The boy got dressed quickly and went out. The ground was unusually hard and he could hear his footsteps as he walked. The air was biting cold now, but still there was not a snowflake in the air. It looked like a fair, sunny, beautiful and entirely snowless morning. One more day like that, the boy thought, and his garden would die.

While his parents were doing their last-minute Christmas shopping and his little brother was watching cartoons, the boy spent the afternoon covering the bushes with plastic sheets. But he knew that that was not enough as it was growing colder and colder every minute. Only snow could save his garden now. It was already growing darker as winter days are so short, and the sky was red and clear in the west.

His younger brother spent the evening chatting about the presents he wanted to receive. AT dinner parents looked at their children and smiled, but when they asked the boy what he wanted for Christmas he said nothing. All the autumn he dreamed of a new camerato take pictures of his flowers and insects, but all he wanted now was snow for his garden. After all, if the plants and insects died, there’d be nothing to take pictures of in the first place, and what’s the use of a camera, he thought, if all you can photograph is people and landscapes?

That night, while the wind was howling outside, shaking the house by the roof, he did not dream of Santa Clause, Christmas trees or presents. Instead he saw dark forests, trees, lying on the ground with their roots in the air, dead flowers, carried by wind, and finally, when he felt he did not want to have those dreams any more, he saw a big snowman that was wearing Santa’s red hat. The snowman had a carrot for his nose and two large black coals for eyes. The snowman turned to the boy and seemed to wink at him encouragingly. For some reason this last dream was so peaceful and full of joy that he smiled and woke up.

All was quiet outside. The wind had ceased in the night. The boy pulled the curtains and saw that the ground was not black any more. It looked very soft and white as if covered with seagulls’ feathers. The sky was light-blue like yesterday, but now it seemed very deep and the rays of the rising sun were golden.

The boy put on his sweater and ran outside without looking at the heap of presents underneath the Christmas tree. In the garden it was cold but the frost seemed quite mild. The snow seemed soft to the touch and felt almost warm. The rosebushes looked like small white hills and there was not a blade of grass left above the snow. The boy smiled and looked around. There was smoke coming directly up from their neighbours’ chimney. All was incredibly quiet and the boy stood there, taking in the calm, for nearly ten minutes before he suddenly felt how cold it was. He turned back and slowly walked towards the house. After all, there WERE presents underneath the Christmas tree, and who knows, perhaps there was a camera waiting for him. A camera he could use right that afternoon when he went out to play snowballs with friends.

January 7, 2010

This morning I had breakfast in the lobby bar and then went to the lift to go upstairs to my hotel room.

Well, there was a small crowd waiting for the lifts. The first people standing next to the doors were 4 women. They were discussing something. Meanwhile, the lifts weren't coming. I looked at the indicator and realised that no one had bothered to press the button to call the lifts

So I did that and almost immediately one of the lifts came. The women goty in, still chatting. They were discussing some man. I got in as well, and two more men

I pressed the button for my floor, one of the men pressed the button for a lower flor. The women kept talking, never looking our way

The lift stops, one of the men goes out. When the doors were already closing, one of the women said loudly: Oh, we're getting out! And they all rushed out. The doors closed, and when the lift was starting to go up, I heard one of the women say rather loudly outside: But where ARE we?

This is something you can ask your children or students to make. Bread-and-butter pudding is a very traditional dish, it's cheap, easy to make and you don't have to supervise the entire process. I tried it in a small restaurant in Scotland and decided that this is a dessert I was going to make now and then.

To make bread-and-butter pudding you'll need:

White bread (what you call "baton" in Russian) - and if it's a couple of days old, it's the best

Butter (surprise-surprise!) - about 50 grams

Two eggs

1/2 litre of milk

a handful of raisins

sugar (brown sugar is traditionsl, although white would do too)

some vanilla essence, either liquid or powder

Procedure:

Slice the bread. The bread should be a couple of days old as it will create teh right texture. Butter each slice thinly.

Put the slices into an oven-proof dish in one layer.

In a bowl mix together the milk and the eggs, whisk them with a fork or a mixer, add vanilla essence and half a glass of sugar (or more to taste).

Sprinkle the buttered bread slices with raisins. Pour some sugar onto them. If your custard is already very sweet, do not put extra sugar on the bread. Pour the custard onto the bread. Sprinkle with sugar on top for icing.

Put the dish into a preheated oven, bake at 180 C until golden on top but still soft and fluffy in the middle. Serve hot.

Кто о чем, а я о дороге, наверное потому, что последние два с половиной месяца я уезжаю или улетаю куда-то каждую неделю. Я сейчас в Хабаровске, сегодня прошел первый день семинара, завтра второй и уезжаю в Комсомольск-на-Амуре. Обычно дальние полеты непросто переносить, за семь часов в самолете можно устать так, что потом несколько дней мало на что хватает сил, не говоря уже о проведении семинаров, которые начинаются в 3 утра по твоему времени. Но на этот раз самолет мне попался очень интересный. Когда летишь или едешь далеко, всегда нужно решить чем себя занять в дороге. Я с собой вожу целую электронную библиотеку (обычно покупаю электронные книги через приложение MyBook или читаю бесплатную классику на английском или французском), а еще беру какие-нибудь фильмы. Но всегда проблема в том, что в долгой дороге успевают разрядиться все устройства, а зарядит их негде и рискуешь остаться без связи. В этот раз все вышло совсем по-другому. Самолет был огромный, на 402 пассажира. Мне пришлось пройти 4 салона, место я себе онлайн выбрал только в пятом. В спинку каждого кресла был вмонтирован небольшой экран, но это дело привычное. А вот что было менее привычным, так это то, что фильмы можно было выбрать самому. Экран был подключен к полетной медиатеке. Фильмов на выбор было около 50, от новинок этого года до классики советского и итальянского кинематографа. Также можно было выбрать музыку (тоже около 50 альбомов, от классики, до рока и музыки для детей), аудиокниги (штук 5) или вид с камеры из кабины пилотов. Конечно, камера показывала не пилотов, а то, что они видят из своей кабины и была включена только во время взлета. Но все равно полет получился очень интересным, а к заготовленным в дорогу книгам и файлам даже не пришлось притронуться. Кстати, в кресла также был вмонтирован USB-порт для зарядки телефона, и на борту за отдельную плату можно было подключиться к интернету через бортовой wifi. Надеюсь, что скоро эти услуги появятся на большем количестве рейсов и летать станет совсем удобно.Завтра вечером я на поезде еду из Хабаровска в КОмсомольск-на-Амуре. ЧИтаю названия станций, через которые будем проезжать: Форель, Санболи, Нусхи, Сельгон, Хевчен, Менгон, Тейсин, Эльбан, Мылки и Хурба. Поневоле зачитаешься!

All in all, I spent only 3 days and a half in Krasnoyarsk, and it is not at all enough to fully enjoy the city and see everything there is to see.

The airport is some 40 km away from the city, so as you fly in in the evening, it is already getting dark and all you can see is the mountains. The mountains are not very tall, they look more like tallish hills, but these are the famous Sayany that go through Hakassia and to Tibet. The famous "poles" ("stolby") - very tall stones - can be seen from the city too.

The river Yenisey runs through the city. The Yenisey was the only one of the great rivers of Russia that I had not seen before, so it was especially interesting to see its leaden-grey waters and the lots of ducks that stay there all winter as the river does not freeze over in Krasnoyarsk.

The city lies on both sides of tyhe river, one bank being more business/trading/university/administrative area and the other one a more industrial/residential one.

One of the most beautiful streets in Krasnoyarsk is Prospekt Mira. As you walk along it, you feel like you are travelling in time. The end of the street which is closest to the Yenisey starts with a monument to Ryazanov and a concert hall, and as you walk through a tall arch, you find yourself in between two rows of wonderfully preserved late 19-th - early 20th century buildings. Most of these buildings were owned by local merchants, so they are large and built and decorated according to the fashions of St Petersburgh. On every such building you can now see a plaque which tells you whose house it used to be, who the architect was and whether this was a house in which someone lived or whether it was built as a school. Uncharacteristically of Russia of those times, many buildings in this street belonged no to men, but to women, who ran their businesses themselves.

The old houses go about halfway along the street, and then, afte a few more steps, you reach Stalin-era architecture. Massive Empire-style buildings with columns and Soviet symbols look stunningly different from what you have seen just a few minutes ago. Some of the buildings look gloomy, if imposing, but the people of Krasnoyarsk have found a wonderful solution to fight the darkness and gloom. Many of those period pieces are painted in bright colours. You will see a bright-green hospital with white columns which does not look like a typical hospital at all. The Federal Railway has several huge office buildings there too.

The street ends with some of the 1980-s and 1990-s buildings which hardly fit the overall looks and atmosphere of ythe street, but fortunately, there are not so many such buildings there.

Next to this street you can see several beautiful old churches, so when you are still in the 19-th centruy part, you feel like you are visiting a different era.

But what makes the streets of Krasnoyarsk special, is not the architecture, no matter how beautiful it is. What really stands out in the streets is a multitude of fountains, sculptures, artificial trees and small clock towers. Of course, the fountains are now covered for the winter, but as you walk past them, you can imagine how great they must look in the summer when it is hot. The sculptures are very diverse: you can see Alexander pushkin reading poems to Natalie Goncharova, a statue of a local artist in a battered sweater with his study album, figures of a nude woman and man, holding hands, and many other things.

All the clock mini-towers are not tall, they seem to be about 2 meters tall at best. They all look a bit like Big ben, but in fact they resemble the clock tower on the city administration building. Apart from those towers you can also see a couple of very special clocks, with huge round faces with a lot of dials that show time, holidays and jubilees of historic events.

And probably the most special thing about the streets of Krasnoyarsk is the artificial trees. They look like sakura trees, bonsai trees or laurels and cherries. For leaves and blossom they have tiny lightbulbs and in the evenings, when all is dark, they shine with different colours: green, yellow, violet, purple... They really make you feel as if it was Christmas.

I was in Krasnoyarsk only last week, but they already had snow. Last Friday was a sunny day, a bit chilly because of the wind, but the snow was shining brightly in the day, and in the evening everything was filled witht hlight of the trees. And if you have a chance to go to Krasnoyarsk, a walk along its streets in the evening is a must if you want to enjoy the city as much as it deserves.

Here's another story I wrote in the USA. It was really interesting to see the reactions of those Americans who read it as it gave them a totally different perspective on the place from what they were so used to having.

The headache was growing stronger, and everything looked fuzzy in the whirls of the hot air. We walked on, trying to find a free bench under a tree to hide away from the sun. But all the seats had long been taken. The old fortress rose nearby, intimidating, with its turrets and thick walls, and beautiful, with the gold cathedral domes peering from behind it. The Kremlin seemed to be soaked in blood, and the sun was gleaming on the red paint of the walls and shining on the cupolas. My younger cousin kept whining about how tired he was. After all, he was only seven years old. I was already twelve, and, being the “grown up” that I was, kept silent. I did not want to tell my aunt about the headache so as not to make her worry.

We were traveling to Kirov, a large city in the North of Russia, where my aunt lived, and we had to change trains in Moscow. We had the whole day to spend there, and she decided to take her son and me to the Kremlin.

I remember how excited I was. I had been in Moscow several times by then, but I had never ever happened to actually walk into the fortress. But by the time we got to the walls, I was ready to give up the idea. After all, we had spent the night on the train, and arrived in Moscow at 6 in the morning.

Finally, we found a tiny café, where, thank God, there was a free table. We sat down, and my cousin stopped complaining immediately. I sat stooping in the chair, waiting for the ‘expedition” to be over.

As it turned out, all the tickets to the Kremlin had been sold out for the day. They were never easy to get, and aunt looked really disappointed. Silent, quiet joy began to fill me. I was just a tired kid, after all. “Aren’t we going to see anything, mummy?” - the little brat was going to start sobbing. Sometimes cousins are harder to put up with than younger brothers, especially when the age gap is that big. Six years make a lot of difference when you are only twelve. “Not again!” thought I, as another arrow of pain shot through my head. But it was too late. Aunt has always loved me no less than her own children, and she was set on doing something enjoyable for us. “I know!” she said, - “we can go and see Lenin!”

The idea fascinated me. Lenin was the leader and the mastermind of the Bolshevik revolution, and also the founder of the Soviet Union. When he died in 1924, people loved him so, as I was told at school, that they preserved his body and built a mausoleum for him. A tired excitement began to grow. It was like going to a museum, and I always loved museums! “Yes, auntie,” said I, - “can we go?”

We rose from the bench and stepped out into the heat. The garden near the Kremlin wall is a popular place, and there were many people there. But at one end of it there was a huge crowd. It was only when we came up to the crowd that I realized that all those people were waiting to see Lenin too. It was only the beginning of the queue, which, like a huge live serpent, encircled half of the Kremlin, and went all the way from behind up to Red Square.

The queue was motionless. There were different people there – old ladies with grandchildren, young men, pensioners and tourists. For many years they had heard stories about Lenin, and it felt now that they knew him as if he were a close relative. Few people were chatting. Most of them kept a revered silence, obviously preparing to see the “founding father” of the state.

Soon a policeman motioned to the queue to move on. We started to walk – ever so slowly, every step like the ones you would take at a funeral, except that the dead person was already in his grave We walked past the garden… slowly we moved on, past the Egyptian obelisk with the names of famous socialist revolutionaries on it, and on and on, past the eternal flame and the tomb of a soldier killed during WW2. There, at least, was something to see! There was a guard, standing in the blazing sun, holding a rifle. He did not move, and his face was stern and motionless, like that of some strange automaton.

The queue was still moving on. We were turning into Red Square now. We walked by the three hundred-year old building of Moscow University, now a museum, and stepped on the cobbles of the square. There was shade. To the right there were blue pines growing along the wall. Above the huge gates of an ancient tower there was a white square indicating the place where an icon used to be for centuries. “Every tower is named after a saint” quickly whispered aunt into our ears.

We were now coming closer. From Red Square you do not see quite as many cathedrals as from behind the Kremlin, but you can see the Grand Palace of Catherine the Great, who ruled Russia two centuries ago. At that time the red Soviet flag was floating on top of it, and I remember thinking that the ancient name really suited the square.

The mausoleum seemed to slowly grow in front of us. Dark granite and polished marble sent sparkles on the cobbles. Two sentinels were guarding the entrance. The small black gates were open, and people were slowly pouring in. By then the sun had risen high in the sky, and it felt as if melted lead was pouring on my head. I was feeling almost sick and longed for the darkness behind the doors.

We stepped in. What looked dark from the outside was a dimly lit hall with steps leading down, underground. Except for the same dark granite of the walls, it looked very much like some of the palatial stations of Moscow underground, so it did not feel like anything special at all. My cousin, who until then was preoccupied with staring at other people, wanted to say something, but my aunt pulled his hand quickly. “You are not supposed to talk here!” she whispered, and even that was enough to make one of the guards inside turn and look at us. Obviously, we were showing bad manners.

It was growing slightly cooler. We very soon reached the bottom of the stairs, and turned a corner. And there… I almost gasped. The huge hall was dark. On the reddish-brown granite walls there were zigzags of black marble. Several guards were lined along the walls, and their white gloves seemed to shine in the darkness. The place was silent, but it looked as though some solemn music ought to sound there.

There was reddish light in the centre of the hall. As we were approaching it, I saw a cube of transparent glass. Inside the crystal sarcophagus, on the bier, lay a short man, dressed in a dark suit. One of his hands was lying on his chest, the other was stretched along his body. He looked so small, and yet so important, all alone there, on the pedestal. A wreath of reddish hair set off his huge bald head, and I just had time to notice his polka-dotted, old-fashioned tie, the likes of which you could see in old photos and books.

People were moving on. If someone tried to slow down, one of the guards would say in a quiet but strict voice “Do move on”. I wanted to better see the person who changed the whole empire, but we were already emerging from the mausoleum into the blaze of the sun, near the Kremlin wall.

I did not feel much, neither did I think much. For some reason, the image of the great person, imprinted into us in the school, seemed utterly out of touch with this short man, lying there, under the ground, as if asleep. I was still thinking about it when we passed Stalin’s tomb and the tombs of other people who once led the country.

It was only when we walked back into the square when my cousin suddenly said: “I need the lavatory”. I realized that he had been silent all that time, and it amazed me more than the dead person we had just walked by. I looked around. Whether the cold of the underground, or the sensation of seeing history come true, but something melted the headache away, and the weak traces of it did not really bother me. I recalled the steps that led on top of the Mausoleum, the ones that the government members used to go up during demonstrations – and suddenly I shuddered. How could they do it, thought I, just go and stand above a dead person like that, and look happy, and smile, and wave their hands? I turned and looked at the Kremlin. The empirial glory still seemed to shine on the gold decorations of Catherine’s palace, but the Soviet flag was harder to see. Without the wind it was powerless. Some non-conventional thoughts began to form in my head, but my cousin demanded to be taken to the toilet, and we hurried along. The ancient fortress looked smug and arrogant, with the small tomb at her feet. These were the last years of the Soviet Union.

Стоя в очередях, можно увидеть совершенно поразительных людей. Мне нередко приходится стоять в очереди за билетами на поезд-экспресс. Времени остается очень немного, всегда есть те, кому билетов не хватает и кто просто не успевает купить, даже отстояв длинную очередь. Я и сам однажды не успел купить и едва не опоздал на запланированную встречу. Иногда поражает меня поведение людей в таких очередях. Стоят, нервничают, вздыхают, с тоской поглядывают на часы. Озираются по сторонам, подсчитывают сколько еще перед ними стоит народу, а потом оглядываются на длинный хвост из людей сзади. Ворчат. что кассиры медленно работают. Наконец перед ними стоит всего один или два человека. С лица постепенно уходит тревога, назад оглядываются уже с победным видом, словно победившие в невиданной конкурентной борьбе. Не слышат и не видят уже никого. Добираются до заветного окошка, и тут... тут начинаются вопросы. Сначала подробно выяснят какого класса билеты остались. Потом не менее подробно - чем вагон одного класса отличается от другого. После этого спрашивают сколько в какой класс билет стоит. Думают. Снова думают (вчера одна женщина, покупая билеты в последние минуты на экспресс Москва-Калуга на Киевском вокзале спросила: а) какой класс бывает, б) есть ли льготы для детей (прямо под табличкой "ЛЬГОТ НЕТ" спрашивала), в) а экспресс Москва-Калуга идет только до Калуги, или дальше тоже? После этого напряглась и взяла, кажется, один билет. Если в среднем кассир тратила на одного человека по 2 минуты (я тоже своей очереди ждал, смотрел на часы и успел подсчитать среднюю скорость и вероятность того, успею ли на поезд), то на эту женщину ушло минут 6. Получила она билет и давай пересчитывать деньги, совершенно не спеша, хотя уже надо было бы очень быстрым шагом идти на перрон. И почему-то таких пассажиров попадаются несколько каждый раз, как пытаюсь купить билет. К чему я это? Да к тому, что у таких людей в свое время явно не были сформированы метапредметные результаты ФГОС, то есть не даны в школе умения, необходимые для жизни. Стоя минут двадцать в очереди, обычно успеваешь не только увидеть и выучить наизусть таблицу "Льгот нет", но и услышать как покупают билеты стоящие впереди тебя, сколько билеты стоят, какого класса вагоны и сколько билетов осталось. К окну подходишь уже с паспортом наготове, а также в паспорт уже вкладываешь нужную сумму денег - или примерно нужную, чтобы очень быстро можно было взять сдачу, билет и посторониться, дав несколько дополнительных секунд стоящему сзади человеку, который уже спешит назвать свою станцию. Видя некоторых пассажиров, с тоской вспоминаешь всё то, чему стараешься учить школьников и студентов: прочитать объявления, посмотреть на расписание и вывещенные рядом цены, услышать и понять из беседы с кассиром стоимость билета и так далее. Мы всему этому учим на своих уроках. И каждый раз, каждый раз находятся те, кто полученные знания совершенно не относит к повседневной жизни - и мешают другим, и опаздывают сами, и винят в этом кого угодно, но только не себя. К чему я это? К тому, что есть множество приемов для того, чтобы научить человека быть если не более успешным, то более внимательным в жизни. Один из приемов - это active listening. Active listening - это не просто безучастное выслушивание информации, это реагирование на нее, запоминание и соотнесение с жизнью. Одно исследованеи показало. что мы запоминаем процентов 25 - 50 % полученной на слух информации. Это примерно означает, что из беседы в двадцать минут наш собеседник половину времени совершенно не обращает внимания на то что мы говорим. Можно ли с этим бороться? Наверное да. Можно попробовать использовать на уроках приемы active listening. Для этого при аудировании помимо заданий на собственно извлечение фактической информации можно давать попутные задания на понимание ситуации и чувств собеседника и степени собственного знакомства с предметом общения, например: Is the speaker experienced? Is the speaker nervous? What frame of mind is he/she in? What goal is the speaker trying to achieve through this conversation? Are you familiar with the sunject of the conversation? How can you show your understanding? Do you have any related experience? и так далее. Такие вопросы помогают не только более полно понять собеседника и запомнить содержание разговора, но также и более внимательно относиться к окружающему и, соответственно, более быстро и эффективно решать свои коммуникативные задачи.

Помню, опубликовал я где-то небольшую статью по методике. Тогда я еще работал в университете. И оказалось, что тема статьи интересовала коллегу с факультета журналистики и эта коллега попросила статью почитать. Прочитав, сказала: "О, а почему у тебя так просто написано? Нам наоборот говорят, что статья должна звучать научно, а у тебя всего несколько терминов и то ты их с самого начала определяешь". Вопрос, честно говоря, тогда поставил меня в тупик. Еще когда я писал диссертацию, Радислав Петрович всегда говорил мне, что текст должен быть "прозрачным", таким, чтобы его смог понять даже человек, не специализирующийся именно в этом направлении. Так обычно пишутся и профессиональные статьи в журналах по методике. Преподавание в школе и в вузе тоже убедило меня в том, что надо говорить и писать понятно для учеников, иначе вместо того. чтобы тратить силы на восприятие информации, они будут тратить время и силы на ее расшифровку. Мне доводилось и рецензировать научные работы, и оппонировать на защитах диссертаций. И нередко получалось так, что текст работы казался неудобоваримым, запутанным и перенасыщенным научными терминами. а стоило спросить что, собственно, автор имел в виду, и оказывалось, что то же самое можно было сказать несколькими словами. Иногда за таким многословием стояло желание "звучать научнее, солиднее", а иногда - просто не настолько хорошее знакомство с той или иной темой, чтобы можно было говорить о ней простым языком. И крайне редко бывало так, что человек просто с детства не научен был выражаться просто и понятно и не умеет говорить по-другому. Есть у меня один хороший знакомый, преподаватель философии - к его манере говорить нужно привыкнуть. Но сейчас речь не совсем об этом.Наверное, нужно еще со школы, в том числе и на уроках английского языка, объяснять детям, что в любом разговоре важно ставить себя на место собеседника. Прежде, чем говорить что-то стоит подумать: а удобно ли будет собеседнику это понять? Как сказать так, чтобы было понятнее? Какие слова выбрать? Что надо объяснить, но так, чтобы не перегружать лишней информацией или не повторять то, что и так уже знает собеседник? Если надо говорить долго (например, читать лекцию, выступать на публику), то как говорить так, чтобы люди не заскучали? Вопросов много, но практически на каждый есть ответы. Самый общий ответ - это так называемые коммуникативные максимы Грайса: качества (говори правду); количества (говори не больше, но и не меньше того, чем это нужно для понимания, т.е. делай свой вклад в разговор настолько информативным, насколько необходимо); отношения (не отклоняйся от темы); манеры, или способа (говори ясно, последовательно, точно, вежливо).Но это только теория. А на практике есть немало приемов чтобы этому обучить. Отдельно можно учить адресованности высказывания, отдельно - краткости и умению перефразировать, отдельно - умению общаться с публикой (есть там и ряд "технических" аспектов речи) и отдельно - умению сделать речь интересной. Все вместе стало бы курсом риторики, но и без отдельного курса можно обучать таким вещам на уроке английского языка. Всё можно. Одна беда остается только - у некоторых людей все ещё сохраняется ощущение, что научно =-- это когда сложно и длинно, а если сказано просто и понятно, то это и ненаучно вовсе. Но мы-то, учителя, знаем что это не совсем так, мягко говоря.

Как оценить величину словарного запаса? для этого существуют специальные тесты. если говорить коротко, то принцип их действия таков: слова разбиваются на группы по частотности их использования. есть группа слов, которые используются широко, а есть несколько групп слов, которые используются реже. Тестируемые честно отмечают те слова, значение которых они знают (не примерно представляют, а именно могут дать определение). Исходя из частотности слов, можно предположить примерно сколько слов знает тестируемый. Несколько лет назад я выполнял такой тест на бумаге в американском университете, а сегодня нашел онлайн-версию. Вы можете пройти такой тест здесь: http://testyourvocab.comКстати, мой результат здесь: http://testyourvocab.com/?r=685641А как у вас дела со словарным запасом на английском языке?

Десять лет назад жизнь во многих деталях поменялась для всего мира. Я помню, как поздним вечером меня позвали знакомые, сказали. что в новостях что-то странное показывают. У них в то время гостил студент из США, Точнее, сам студент был родом из Южной Кореи, но он к тому времени уже несколько лет учился в США и работал там полицейским. Все сидели перед телевизором. На экране был виден пылающий небоскреб, а ко второму как раз подлетал маленький на фоне громады здания самолетик. Подлетал ближе, ближе и врезался в здание. Оттуда сразу посыпались обломки и повалил дым, а диктор в прямом эфире говорил, что это второй самолет, а третий подлетает к Пентагону. Смотреть на все это было жутко, потому что дым из первого здания уже застилал второе и было видно, как с верхних этажей начали спрыгивать крошечные фигурки людей. Кореец спросил правда ли это прямая трансляция, и вдруг начал аплодировать и кричать нечто вроде "Так, так, правильно!". Я никак не мог понять как человек, учащийся и зарабатывающий на жизнь в США так радуется гибели людей, происходящей на его глазах. Да и в сам теракт очень трудно было поверить, хотя все шло в прямом эфире. Из-за теракта многое поменялось. В аэропортах очереди стали длиннее, нужно теперь разуваться, а когда я летел из Вашингтона в Россию несколько лет назад, служащий в аэропорту сказал мне, что я обязан оставить чемодан незапертым на замок, потому что в противном случае замок сломают для досмотра. В США ввели в действие Patriot Act, по которому правительственные агентства получили право читать почту (в том числе и электронную) любого, кого они хоть в малейшей степени заподозрят в помощи террористам, а также получили возможность арестовывать таких людей. Появились инструкции, допускающие и регламентирующие проведение пыток... жить стало если не страшнее, то намного печальнее.Я впервые попал в США через несколько дней после того, как в Москве освободили заложников в театре на Дубровке (и так много людей погибло...). Помню, что больше всего меня поразило то, как эти события подавались в средствах массовой информации в США. На канале Fox News (как и на многих других каналах) ведущий прямо-таки кричал, что спецслужбы России совершили преступление, и что (цитирую) "если мистер Путин хочет. чтобы Америка и дальше продолжала позволять ему помогать ей бороться с терроризмом, он обязан сообщить какой газ использовался, иначе вся вина за гибель террористов и заложников ляжет на него персонально". Меня поразил контраст в отношении к своей трагедии и к нашей, в ожиданиях того, что все страны обязаны помогать США, но если что-то происходит в России, что Россия обязана каяться вне зависимости от того, что происходило. Сказать. что было неприятно смотреть такие передачи и читать похожие статьи в газетах - это значит почти ничего не сказать.С тех пор прошло много времени. В свое время я провел год в американском университете, я знаком с замечательными людьми - преподавателями, писателями,студентами, и знаю, как много среди них таких, кто искренне сочувствует неурядицам в любой точке мира, стремится помочь, интересуется тем, как живут повседневной жизнью люди в других странах (например, одна моя подруга-американка очень переживает за людей в Судане, тогда как большинство моих русских знакомых вряд ли вспомнят что там такое происходит). Для меня сейчас США - это не просто абстрактная страна, а конкретные люди, много хороших, людей, много умных, и несколько не очень. И все же когда речь идет об 11 сентября, я вспоминаю не столько кадры горящих зданий, сколько аплодисменты корейца, который до сих пор живет и работает в США - вспоминаю и не могу понять как такое было возможно. И как бы там ни было, но даже если мы не осознаем этого, события десятилетней давности повлияли и на нашу с вами жизнь, которая стала неустроеннее, более хрупкой и тем более ценнее.

 

Уважаемые коллеги, издательство "Титул" начинает выпускать новую серию книг для дошкольников и младших школьников "К празднику". Вышла книга "Новый Год". Эта книга поможет детям своими руками подготовиться к новогоднему празднику, сделать яркую и оригинальную открытку, елочные украшения для друзей и родных, а также выполнить интересные задания и узнать о необычных новогодних традициях разных стран. Книга полностью на русском языке, она станет хорошим подарком любому дошкольнику. Завтра выложим для скачивания несколько заданий из книги. Книгой можно пользоваться как дома, так и в детских садах и центрах развития ребенка, материалов хватит на несколько занятий.

 

 

Source: Развивающие игры и поделки к Новому Году

Years ago I used to hear from my English friends that food in Scotland is indigestible and not tasty at all. Every time I heard it I thought of English food and I couldn't possibly imagine how bad Scottish food must be if it was no good even as compared with English meals.This summer was my first chance to try a Scottish breakfast in Edinburgh and to see for myself whether my English friends were right.

A full Scottish breakfast differs from a full English breakfast only in a few details. It normally consists of eggs (fried, scrambled or boiled, the choice is yours), bacon (and bacon in Scotland is cut thicker than in England), a few mushrooms, fried whole, a spoonful or two of baked beans, a slice of black pudding (looks and tastes like a spicy blood sausage) and a bit of haggis. Since it was mainly haggis that I heard of as the worst bit of a Scottish meal, I was interested in trying it. Haggis is made from minced sheep's "pluck' (that is, liver, heart and lungs), onions, spices and the mixture is boiled in the sheep's stomach. The taste resembles a spicy liver sausage, only it has a harder texture. To tell you the truth, I found haggis quite tasty and often had it afterwards.

On its own, haggis can be served as a main course. In this case it is served with "neeps and tatties" (mashed turnips and potatoes, which come in layers" the bottom grey layer is haggis, the middle honey yellow layer is turnip, and the upper layer is mashed potatoes).

But another Scottish meal which impressed me was the traditional porrige with a "wee dram".

The most famous Scottish drink is whisky. You will find lots of local distilleries in Scotland, some are famous locally, others are well-known nationwide and internationally. And a 'wee dram" is a small shot of whisky ("wee" meaning "small" in gaelic). So porrige with a wee dram is in fact a bowl of porridge, served with cream and a small portion of whisky which you are supposed to put in your porridge. I had it only once, and decided that it really wasn't my cup of tea.

But all in all food in Scotland is lovely, if different from what we are used to in our country.

Almost every British city has a High street. Every High street is the main shopping and often tourist area. Some High streets are longer, some are shorter, but only one such street is in fact a whole succession of several streets and is exactly one mile long, albeit a Scottish mile. This street is called "The Royal mile", you can find it in edinburgh, and it goest from the Castle Rock, on which Edinburgh Castle stands, all the way down to the palace of Holyrood House and the remains of Holyrood Abbey.

The Royal Mile is exactly one Scottish mile long. A Scottish mile is 1.8 km long, and such miles were used in Scotland until 1824. The buildings in the Royal Mile are old. Some of them are only slightly younger than the castle itself, so you can drop in a 300 years old shop or dine in a pub which dates back to 1500-s. You can tell the age of the buildings not only by their architectural styles, but also by the dark, sometimes black stones, some of them only roughly hewn, and by the narrow, winding passages that lead to the Royal Mile.

The Royal Mile is not all shops and pubs (by the way, do remind me to tell you about Deacon Brody's tavern, the gallows and the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). To the right of the Royal Mile, if you're standing with your back to the castle, in a broad street, there is "The Elephant", the pub in which JK Rowling wrote large portions of her harry Potter books. Right on the Royal Mile, looking majestic, is St. Giles High Kirk (cathedral), where the knights of the Order of the Thistle gather, presided by the Queen, in the oak-panelled Thistle Chapel. Facing the palace of Holyrood House is the Scottish Parliament, and although it is only a 300-metres walk from the palace, this year the Queen was driven there in a State limousine to make a speech on the occasion of the parliament''s 10th anniversary. I do not know whether the drive was due to the Queen's desire to show respect to the Scottish parliament, or because she was having a heavy cold in early July.

As I said earlier, the Royal Mile is comprised of several streets, which are Castle Esplanade, Castlehill, Lawnmarket, High Street, Canongate and Abbey Strand. Castle Hill, Castle Esplanade, lawnmarket together with the lower-lying Grassmarket are all parts of the Old Town of Edinburgh. As the name suggests, there is also a New Town, with beautiful Georgian houses. The New Town was built in the 18th century, so perhaps it is not quite so brand-new after all.

Visitors are admitted daily to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, when the Queen is not there. I will tell about this palace tomorrow, as, although it is part of the Royal Mile, it is a sight in its own right.

Probably the most unexpected aspect of travelling abroad is culture shock. even when th eculture of the country you're travelling to is rather familiar to you, the chances still are that you are going to have a bit of a culture shock. And the less familiar the country is, the stronger the shock will be.

There are 4 stages(some people say there're 5) in any culture shock: the honeymoon stage, when you enjoy the difference and love every single moment of it. This stage normally lasts from several days to a couple of weeks, but then the excitement begins to subside. This is when the honeymoon stage gives way to rejection/withdrawal stage. What you loved at first - the different foods, the gestures, the customs - now begins to irritate you, because you now feel a bit like an outsider. The differences become more noticeable and less intriguing, whereas since you are not an insider, you are more likely to do something which will be offensive to insiders of the local culture or something which will be ineffective at best. This may lead to frustration and, in severe cases, a self-isolation from the frustrating experience.

If the rejcetion and misunderstanding is too strong, you can enter the next stage of the culture shock. At this stage (the depression and isolation stage) some people get so depressed that they decide to leave the country.

Fortunately, for those who do overcome the rejection stage, a new stage arrives sooner or later. This is the adjustment stage when you learn the intrinsic cultural issues and cease making blunders, and gradually begin to feel like at home in this new country. In a way it is a bit like the honeymoon stage because you enjoy the new culture again, but this time the enjoyment is not because the culture is new and different, but because you are becoming an insider, you do not make mistakes and you know your way about. Ideally, while teaching a foreign language AND culture we should be able to help our students learn to adjust, help them to see deeper and not judge a culture by only external, outward appearances, but rather understand why people do things in the way they do them.

When I was spending a year at an American university, I had excellent opportunities to observe culture shock and the adjustment process in different people. Since this was not my first time in the USA and I had had a lot of experience of daily communication with representatives of that culture, I was relatively free of culture shock. made quite a few friends among both the teachers and the students and could compare the first-time experience of my fellow-grantees without having to get distracted by myt own cultural struggles.

The two people I observed on a daily business was a young Russian woman from Uzbekistan and a young Azeri man from Azerbaidjan. To cut an otherwise long story short, I'll tell about the cultural shock and problems that the Azeri guy went through during that year. I will not name him to protect his provacy, though, and will refer to him as "the Azeri guy". Personally, we were friends and rented a flat together, but I have lost contact with him since that time and therefore cannot obtain his permission to give out his name in a comparative 'study".

1. Proxemics. The distance at which you stand from another person is culturally-dependent and differes in different countries. While Americans in smaller cities prefer to stand at least approximately 1.5 metres aways from each other while talking, the comfortable distance for Azeri guy was much shorter. He tried to stand closer, people would step back, so conversations often turned into a sort of a slow tango. Consequently, before he learned about distances and proxemics in general, Americans seemed very remote and cold to him. He, on the other hand, seemed to be constantly intruding on their personal space.

2. Dress code. Large university campuses are probably the most democratic and diverse places you can find when it comes to clothes. People wear what they like. I had a professor who is a big name in language testing, he used to wear shorts and a T-shirt to most of his classes, whereas some other professors would try to dress more elegantly than most of their students. An indispensable rule, however, is to wear something different every day, for example, if you're wearing jeans and a T-shirt one day, the next day you ought to wear a different T-shirt or different jeans/trousers/whatever. The Azeri guy, on the contrary, was used to dressing very conservatively and with little variation, so he wore the same suit and shirt for three or more days, although he did have enough other clothes.

3. Attitude to children. At a very early stage the Azeri guy was told to never touch other people's children. He was indignant, because in Azerbaidjan, according to him, when a man shows that he cares for children, it means that he is a sensitive and kind person. So in Azerbaidjan a man can pat someone else's child on the head or even give the child a kiss on the head, and this wins the man respect. In the USA such actions can lead to legal prosecution.

4. Visiting people. Once the Azeri guy was invited to an American family to Thanksgiving dinner. He asked me what would be a good present to take along, so I suggested he should take a bottle of wine or even some national dish that he could make himself so that the host family would be able to try something new and unusual. He made some dolma and when he returned, he was amazed and even shocked at how well the dish was received and how much attention was drawn to it. He explained to me, that in his country bringing food to other people's home can be taken as an insult to their hospitality, and if a man cooks something, this can be taken as an insult to his gender role.

The Azeri guy's honeymoon stage last for approximately two weeks, the frustration and adjustment stages took about 9 months and the "feeling at home" stage last only 2 months, which was way too short for such a long stay. At the end of the year he told me that he had only began enjoying himself and really learning something, because he had been struggling with culture shock all the time, seeing how people reacted in totally different ways from what he expected and how his best intentions were often misinterpreted.

Therefore I believe that having the potential culture shock in view while teaching, telling students how to overcome it can be an important part of language teaching and can help propel students' progress on their trips abroad, while culture shock can hamper it greatly. If you're interested, I could tell in more detail about some causes of culture shock in different cultures.

Every time I think of a good teacher (and I am lucky to have known such teachers personally), I cannot help noticing that although they are all very different, they have one thing in common: they all do research. The research I mean is not always formal, in fact, many of them have problems trying to formalise their research or to describe its results, but they keep doing it anyway. For some of them research means a constant search for new words and meanings, new ways of putting things in English. This helps them to keep up their proficiency in English, although very often this is not enough for any serious development as teachers. Other teachers, apart from brushing up their English, try to learn as much as possible about new things they read in new textbooks, like what is zorbing ("Enjoy English" 10) or who Squanto was ("Happy English.ru" 9) etc. This is also a kind of research because to do it you need to find some internet sites or books with the information, you need to compare the information you've got from different sources and put it together to be able to explain it to the pupils, so just using a dictionary will not be enough. Some teachers try to do formal research. There are teachers who do it because their methodological unit requires it, and there are those who do it because they are truly interested. Something tells me that the majority of our forum members belong to the latter group.

A frequent problem that such researchers encounter is that they just read whatever they can find on a certain topic and then put the information together. This is what makes it difficult for them to formalise the results of their research. In fact, such an approach would make it difficult to achieve significant results as well.

So how could a teacher work if she/he wants to do some true research, in the academic sence of the word, something that could be formalised, described and published or presented at conferences?

The first step would be to formulate a hypothesis. Of course, to be able to do that a researcher should already have substantial background knowledge of the field she/he is going to research, but since we are talking about professional teachers and research in methodology, this should not be a big problem. A hypothesis is usually formulated around a "what if" idea. That is, what happens if I use this method? Will my teaching become more effective if I use ICT? What will happen if I combine ICT and the process-oriented approach to teaching personal letter writing in grade 8? You may have noticed that with every sentence the idea becomes more concrete, more down-to-earth and manageable. In fact, if we turn the last question into a statement, we will already get a hypothesis, namely: "Teaching 8th-graders to write personal letters will be more effective if we use ICT and the process-oriented approach." This is a research that can be carried out during one academic year, and now it is time to further break it down into smaller, easily identifiable and manageable chunks.

Breaking the work down is necessary because there are stages to go through, with an identifiable result for every stage. Now that you've got your hypothesis, you need to see what other people have done in this area. As likely as not, you will find that noone else has tackled this topic yet. This means that what you do will be very interesting for those who will follow in your footsteps. But if you do find that someone has already done something fairly similar (for example, used ICT and the process-oriented approach to teach essay-writing to 10th-graders), you will be able to see how that person's findings work in your particular classroom and what you can do to apply them to teaching personal letter writing to younger students. In fact, the result of this preparatory stage would be your knowledge of what has been done in this area and what other researchers think about this problem. If no research has been done in this area yet, you will have to find what other researchers mean by ICT, how the process-oriented approach to teaching writing is different from other approaches and how it can be used to teach personal letter writing. With this done, you are ready to plan practical action.

Practical preparation for action. The main aim of every research is to see if your hypothesis works, if it is correct. In our example it would mean to make sure that the use of ICT and the process-oriented approach to teaching writing will enable you to effectively teach your 8th-graders to write personal letters. You will have learnt from your previous background information study that ICT here may mean anything from specially designed learning software to the use of e-mail and blogs. Also, you will have read about the stages of the process-oriented approach to teaching writing. Now it's your job to decide how and when the ICT will come into your teaching in your 8th grade. For example, you may choose to teach students the process-oriented approach first and then introduce ICT, or you may combine the two things and use them simultaneously. You may prefer to go along with the logic of the learning software, or you may decide for yourself on the stages in teaching. You will also see what your students already know about writing personal letters (you can always give them a task and see how well they do it - and in the end you'll give them a similar task and see what has changed during the year). In any case, this is your planning stage. After the plans are laid, the next stage is the practical testing of your hypothesis, that is, the teaching.

Testing your hypothesis. Teaching is teaching. This is what teachers are for, this is what they are supposed to be good it. The only difference between your everyday teaching and teaching as part of your experiment is that here you pay a special attention to what makes your teaching more (or less, as the case may be) effective while using ICT and the process-oriented approach to teaching writing. And also you make notes, you describe what and how your students have learnt about writing personal letters. At the end of the year you should be able to see what progress your students have made and, based on your previous teaching experience you can tell what part of the progress can be attributed to new methods and approaches. So all you have to do now is describe your experiment.

Describing the outcomes. should not be too hard to do. First, you already have your hypothesis. You have tested it in your classroom. You have been taking notes about how the teaching was going and writing down your observations. Now you have a large part of the job done, some of it is already in writing and some is in your head. All you need to do now is write it down on paper, attach examples of students' work from all stages of the experiment, and prepare areport on what and how you have done and what you think will be effective in any other classroom, and what you would not recommend other teachers to do because it is not effective.

Hopefully, this will help some young teachers to begin to do research on a regular basis. By the way, what are you planning to study/research this year?

Today I've written a short piece describing how I use discussions in the classroom. To get students talking I often use quotations with which they will either strongly agree or strongly disagree, and this helps to get a discussion rolling without risking to offend someone. At the same time this is a good reason to tell students more about some people and events from English-speaking countries and to provide background information in general. Hope you'll find these quotation useful. As a good source of quotations I use the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations, which I heartily recommend:

1. Douglas Adams British writer: Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

2. Alfred Adler Austrian psychologist: It is always easier to fight for one's principles than live up to them.

3. Pamela Anderson Canadian actress: When you have nothing to live up to, you can't disappoint anybody... When you form a full sentence, you're a genius.

4. Eddie Arcaro US jockey: When a jockey retires he becomes just another little man.

5. Jacques Attali French economist: Machines are the new proletariat. The working class is being given its walking papers.

6. Margaret Atwood Canadian writer: To live without mirrors is to live without the self.

7. Alan Ball English footballer and member of the 1966 World Cup team: I shall tell you what made us what we were. We had this wonderful feeling that we were still part of the people.

8. Roland Barthes French writer: All domination begins by prohibiting language.

9. Buzzie Bavasi American baseball manager: We live by the Golden Rule. Those who have the gold make the rules.

10. Francis Biddle American lawyer: The American Constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime President.

11. Conrad Black Canadian-born British businessman: Since when was greed a criminal offence?

12. Tony Blair Former UK prime minister: I am a pretty straight sort of guy.

13. Boy George English pop singer: New York is so clean now you could eat your dinner off its streets. I'll do London next, but I'll charge this time.

14. Gordon Brown UK prime minister: It will not be a surprise to you to learn I'm more interested in the future of the Arctic Circle than the future of the Arctic Monkeys.

15. Warren Buffett US businessman: It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked.

16. George W. Bush US president: Yo, Blair. How are you doing?

17. David Cameron British politician: He was the future once. (of Tony Blair)

18. Jimmy Carr Irish comedian: On your way out, be aware of women and children - they tend to slow you down.

19. Joan Collins British actress: Older men treat women like possessions, which is why I like younger men.

20. Billy Connolly Scottish comedian: If you want to lose weight, don't eat anything out of a bucket.

21. Robin Cook Former Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons: I may not have succeeded in halting the war in Iraq, but I did secure the right of Parliament to decide on war.

22. Quentin Crisp English writer: Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.

23. The Dalai Lama Tibetan spiritual leader: We are a part of humanity, so we should take care of humanity. And if we can't do that, then we should at least do no harm.

24. Philip K. Dick US science fiction writer: Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

25. George Eastman American businessman: The rich man never really gives anything, he only distributes part of the surplus. It is the person of moderate means who really gives.

26. Dawn French British actress: If I were alive in Rubens's time, I'd be celebrated as a model and Kate Moss would be used as a paint brush.

27. Bill Gates American businessman: The world has had a tendency to focus a disproportionate amount of attention on me.

28. John Paul Getty American businessman: The best form of charity I know is the art of meeting a payroll.

29. James Goldsmith British financier: When you marry your mistress you create a job vacancy.

30. Hubert Gregg English songwriter: I'm blessed with total recall, apart from where I left my umbrella.

31. Matt Groening American humorist: You tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. (Homer Simpson) ...and: Kids are the best...You can teach them to hate the things you hate. And they practically raise themselves, what with the internet and all. (Homer Simpson)

32. Woody Guthrie American folksinger: I ain't a communist necessarily, but I been in the red all my life.

33. Robert Heinlein American novelist: More than three can't agree on when to have dinner, much less when to strike. More than six people cannot decide a thing.

34. David Hockney British artist: The reason you start painting yourself is that you are a model; a cheap model. I mean, you've always got yourself.

35. Peter Jay British journalist, economist and former diplomat: It makes one feel like the geography teacher who showed a map of the world to Genghis Khan. (claiming to have explained monetarism to Margaret Thatcher)

36. David Kay American weapons inspector: We have not yet found shiny, pointy things that I would call a weapon.

37. Peter Kay British comedian: Garlic bread - it's the future. I've tasted it.

38. John Kerry US politician: How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

39. Ann Landers US advice columnist: At every party there are two kinds of people - those who want to go home and those who don't. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.

40. Nigella Lawson British cookery writer: Diets are like boyfriends - it never really works to go back to them.

41. Jay Leno American comedian: The US finally came up with an exit strategy. Unfortunately it's for the World Cup. (after the US soccer team were knocked out in the early stages of the World Cup)

42. Gary Lineker English footballer: Football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and, at the end, the Germans win.

43. Ken Livingstone British politician: This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful... It was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Jew, young and old. (On the suicide bombings in London, 7 July 2005)

44. Linda McCartney American photographer and animal rights activist: I don't eat anything with a face.

45. Denis MacShane British politician: I liken the French/British relationship to a very old married couple who often think of killing each other but would never dream of divorce.

46. Bill Maher American comedian: Suicide is our way of saying to God: "You can't fire me. I quit."

47. Warren Mitchell British actor: You don't retire in this business. You just notice the phone hasn't rung for 10 years.

48. Nick Park Animator and creator of Wallace & Gromit: I never thought that playing with plasticine would lead to such a glamorous life.

49. Philip Pullman British writer: I thought physics could be done to the glory of God, till I saw there wasn't any God at all and that physics was more interesting anyway.

50. John Reid Labour MP and former Home Secretary: Our system is not fit for purpose.

51. Andy Roddick American tennis player: Maybe I'll just punch him or something. (On how he might beat Roger Federer)

52. Anita Roddick British businesswoman: I watch where the cosmetics industry is going and then walk in the opposite direction.

53. Nicholas Serota British art expert: This is a plea for patience. Your scepticism will gradually diminish and your fear will turn to love... All art was modern once.

54. Felipe Scolari Portuguese football coach: Now there is so much professionalism, we have to revert to urging players to like the game, love it, do it with joy.

55. O. J. Simpson American football player: Fame vaporises, money goes with the wind, and all that's left is character.

56. Upton Sinclair American novelist: It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

57. Linda Smith British comedian: I play all my country and western music backwards. Your lover returns, your dog comes back to life and you cease to be an alcoholic.

58. Lynne Truss British writer: Abuse is the currency of all reality shows.

59. Robin Williams US actor: There were a lot of doctors in rehab. It's rather like being in a fat farm with nutritionists.

60. Edward O. Wilson American sociobiologist: Wonderful theory, wrong species. (On Marxism, which he considered more suited to ants than to humans)

I've just spent two days at the Russian Exhibition center in moscow, attending the 22nd International Book Fair. I go there every year just for this event because this is where you can listen to popular authors, buy books at publishers' prices and on the whole see what new books and textbooks have appeared. This Book fair is also a good place to see some well-known people among the audience. usually there are many actors, singers, TV presenters etc walking along the rows.

This year there are over 800 publishers from many countries present. The Guest of honour is India, and there is a large Indian section where you can have a look at all kinds of books from India and listen to some live music performances. Bukgaria is another guest of honour, with many books present.

Surprisingly, this year it is next to impossible to find any English language textbooks at the fair. There was a number of university textbooks, some very specialised, like English for Hospitality Industry, English for medicine etc. At the huge stand of Logosphera trading company you can find plenty of fiction in English, a lot of excellent arts albums and only a few well-known books like "Pronunciation in Use", "Vocabulary in Use" and other "In Use" series. This year the only federal English language textbooks for schools at the fair can be found at Titul Publishers stand. Yesterday Klara and Marianna Kaufman appeared there briefly, but some people managed to get their textbooks signed by the authors, today Merem Z. Biboletova is at the stand for a while.

Other publishers did not present any federal English language textbooks for schools, the only non-Titul Russian textbook I saw was the textbook by N.A. Bonk.

I also looked at multimedia disks, but all I could find were some learning programmes by Random House and disks like Oxford Platinum and Oxford DeLuxe - something that I had known for years. Pity, because I was really looking forward to buying some discs for myself.

This year the fair is happening in a new pavilion, Pavilion 75, and it looks and feels much better than previous years. The pavilion is large, the rows between the stands are wide, the ventilation system is excellent, the speakers are great so you can easily hear each and every anouncement, and the coffe bars and food stalls are easy to locate.

Actually, the fair lasts till Sunday, so if you have a chance to get there, do - it is interesting.

Do you ever feel nervous before speaking in public? Of course by the virtue of our profession we have to do it every day, but still I've met many excellent teachers who are extremely reluctant to speak at a conference or address an audience outside their classroom. I remember a couple of years ago at a conference in Murmansk a wonderful teacher who had taken part in an experiment to improve the quality of textbooks and who had done an excellent job, got so nervous just before she was to speak, that her blood pressure level rose dramatically and she had to stop in mid-sentence and go and take her medicine. I called her in the end of the day just to make sure she had got home safely and did not need any help, and she was upset that she had not made her speech as intended.

So why do we fail to speak in public sometimes? The reason is simple, it is called "stage fright". Speaking in class is different from speaking to general public or a professional audience because in these cases we are outside our habitual environment.

Although I give lectures and workshops in many different regions to lots of teachers, I get stage fright as well. So let me share some ways of overcoming it, perhaps you will find some of them useful.

First of all, you can never know if you will go down with the audience well. This idea makes many people extremely worried, although, in fact, the solution is quite simple. Any audience is there to listen to something new. Therefore if when you only begin your lecture/presentation/speech ask the people what they know what what they feel will be interesting for them to hear, it will help you a lot. In this way you'll be able to make your information relevant for the audience and ensure that people listen to you. In this way there is no need to fear that you will not be interesting to the audience.

Which brings up another point. Sometimes, no matter how interesting the speech is, it becomes boring very quickly. The reason, again, is simple: the speech is too quiet and monotonous. If you cannot speek loudly, why not come closer to the people? And intonations should not be too "academic": after all, the whole thing is about people enjoying listening to you, not about you enjoying speaking. I've heard several very clever and interesting people who, when they address an audience, immediately "put on an academic hat" and begin speaking as if they were addressing students, and not very clever students at that. They tend to forget that they are talking to professionals who can either help them by sharing their own experience, answering questions, agreeing or disagreeing with the speaker, but it will be a lively talk. Hardly anyone needs lecturing these days, but a conversation always works. Your lecture is worth only as much as how interesting it is for the people and how easy it is to hear you. So there i sno need to fear that you will lose the audience in the middle of your speech.

Some speakers get stage fright because they feel that they are not experienced enough or they don't feel that what they have to say has much value for the audience. Again, we have two simple solutions fo rthis problem. Solution 1: if you feel that you don't know what to say on this topic, choose another topic where you do know what to say. Solution 2: if you are sharing your own experience, it is always interesting. Just remember that your experience and ideas are worth no less than someone else's, and no one can tell about your experience better than you. I remember one of the times when I was working as an interpreter at a big economic forum. Most of th eforum perticipants were governors from different regions of Russia, including the mayor of moscow and I needed to translate what was being said to a British millionnaire and then translate his speech to the entire audience. Although this was by far not my first experience of simultaneous translation at important events, for some reason I felt nervous before going on the stage. But then I said to myself that although it's very likely that there are people in the hall who speak excellent English, I am still a professional interpreter and no one among those present would be able to do my job better than myself. To remind myself of my qualification was enough to drive away the stage fright.

Also, some of us have a fear that something will go wrong with the technical equipment, that the computer won't start, or the data projector will break down or there will be no sound from the speakers. Well, such things do happen. Therefore it is always a good idea to have some alternative variants of delivering a presentation. You can print out the handouts, you can ask the public to share their ideas and experience, you can do all sorts of content-related activities that we do in our classrooms every day. If you are prepared to be flexible, you needn't fear failures of technical equipment.

And finally, some people are afraid of not being able to answer some of the questions at once. In fact, there is nothing wrong with not knowing answers to each and every questions. Some questions do not have an answer. The answer to some questions is the short and simple "no". And when someone asks a question which you cannot even understand there is nothing wrong with asking this person to paraphrase the question, with asking experienced teachers among the audience if they have ever encountered similar problems and how they deal with them. You'll be surprised to see how many solutions will be offered immediately, and there is really no need to be afriad of questions because there are always many people around who want to help you.

These are just a few simple things, but I hope that they will help you to deal with stage fright if ever you get any.

After you've lived in different countries or shared the flat with people from other cultures you pick up ideas as you go. One of the aspects of our lives in which we remain very traditional is cooking. Recipes are passed down from generation to generation and we learn to think within a specific framework. Thinking outside the box while cooking takes either a very creative mind, or some experience, as my case is. Perhaps some of you will be interested in the recipes I am going to share in my blog. I've learnt most of them from my foreign friends or in cafes in other countries. Most of these recipes are cheap to make and easy to cook. So here we go.

A Spanish omelette.

This is good for breakfast as it is quite nutritious and at the same time doesn't take long to make.

For 3 servings you will need:

3 large potatoes

three eggs

a pinch of salt

a pinch of black pepper

any vegetables (a couple of pepper cones, some green beans, onion, broccoli or similar will do just fine. If you're using aubergine or courgette, dice it).

Oil for frying

Preparation method:

Peel and wash the potatoes, slice them into circles. Heat the cooking oil in a frying pan and put the potatoes there to fry. When each side is slightly golden, put the vegetables on top. Break the eggs into a separate bowl. Whisk them up with a mixer or a fork (for me a fork has always worked just fine), add the salt and pepper to the eggs, pour the mixture onto the vegetables. Leave until the eggs are set.

What you get is a nice vegetarian dish, nutritious but not too heavy. Total preparation and cooking time is about 20 minutes.

Bon appetit!

There are people who believe that traditional American food is burgers and hotdogs. There are also those who say that there is no national cuisine in the USA. None of these people are actually right. True, burgers are popular in the USA as a convenient way of having a quick meal, just about as popular as sandwiches are in the UK. Still this is certainly not the only dish that the USA can offer. In fact, there are several distinctly different regional cuisines in the USA. While people in the South, particularly in Texas, are famous for their fried foods, high in fats, someone from the North will offer you a very light low-calorie breakfast. Also, you eat differently in the East and in the West of the USA. Also, immigrants from many countries bring their own traditional recipes and open their restaurants everywhere. Buffalo wings, tacos, nachos, Cesar salad, all sorts of dips, fajitas, caramel apples, pumpkin pies, meatloaf - there are lots and lots of dishes that have a distinctly American flavor.

One of the easiest dishes to cook in Russia is meatloaf. There are many ways of cooking it and many families have lots of different recipes. Here's the one that I use:

To make meatloaf you'll need the following ingredients:

700 gr Minced meat

a can of sweet corn

some soy or Worcestershire sauce

some ketchup

one large onion

herbs (I use fresh parseley or dill, but dry herbs will do just fine)

one egg

breadcrumbs if the minced meat is too juicy

Cooking method:

Mix all the ingredients together to form a smooth substance that will keep its shape like a loaf of bread. Put it into a baking form and bake in the oven until ready. I sometimes line the form with rashers of bacon and cover the meatloaf with bacon too, but this is for those who like a crunchy meat crust on this dish. Tastes great with grilled vegetables or boiled new potatoes or just with boiled vegetables. Serve and enjoy.

Подсчитал сколько за 2013 год проехал по работе. Провел семинары в 25 городах (в некоторых по несколько раз), всего проехал 71199 километров, не считая семинаров в Москве. Это почти два кругосветных путешествия по экватору. Только в полетах провел 81 час. Личные поездки даже не считаю...Год, конечно, еще не кончился, еще впереди вебинары и несколько коротких поездок, но цифры уже существенно не изменятся. Для сравнения, количество часов в полетах у меня в этом году - как у военного летчика в Белоруссии, а вот еще цитата из новостей: "В 2003 году в российских ВВС средний годовой налет на одного летчика составлял от 12 до 44 часов. В 2007 году, благодаря улучшению снабжения авиатопливом и активизации боевой подготовки, среднегодовой налет заметно увеличился: в Дальней авиации он составил 80–100 часов, в истребительной – примерно 55–60 часов.". Хорошо, что я летаю исключительно с мирными целями! ;)/>

The quest for "the perfect textbook" is an endless and futile undertaking. It is endless because there are numerous textbooks all over the world, some are better, some are worse, but every day more and more textbooks appear. It is futile because no matter how good a textbook is, the degree of its efficiency and ease of use will greatly vary in different classroom, with different types of learners and in different classroom settings. One thing that is important, however, is who the target learners of the textbook are. This is crucial because if the target learners are defined correctly, the number of hours, the methodology, and, most importantly, the content becomes self-evident.

Throughout my teaching career of 13 years I have tried many different textbooks. And very gradually I've reached a conclusion which, I think, could be interesting for those who are only beginning to teach.

A textbook can be a global one. This means that it targets learners everywhere, all over the world. Such textbooks are based on the assumption that people are more or less the same everywhere, notwithstanding their cultural differences, and that more or less the same things are likely to arouse their interest. Although the covers and the methodologies in such textbooks can vary, their content and topics are very similar. Indeed, every time students are supposed to talk about environmental issues, they discuss tropical rainforests and pollution from large cars. Every time they study adverbs of place, it is a British (or, more rarely, American) house that they describe, as well as a typical street in an English town. When they talk about history, it is mainly English history that is discussed (although here I've seen some very welcome variation). The problem I see with such textbooks is that the world is a much larger place than just Britain, or Europe, or the USA. And our students need not only to be able to receive information about the world, but also to share stories about their own country and about their own lives. And they need to get enough of comprehensible input, speaking in S. Krashen's terms, to be able to acquire enough language to do that.

True communication happens not when one person adjusts his/her linguistic behaviour to that of his/her interlocutor, but when everyone in the conversation remains standing on the cultural position of his/her country and pays due respect to the cultural features of the interlocutor. From this point of view. learning only about one or two countries during the course of study is pointless. A more "culturally-aware" textbook would need to be localised, it needs to contain at least some information about the pupils' culture, history and country, otherwise instead of being representatives of their own country, they will fall into the trap of 'cultural imperialism" and will feel that there is only one 'correct" model of behaviour, that only certain interests and presumptions are correct or just interesting.

when I was using global textbooks in my classroom, I always felt that my own country was dramatically underrepresented there. Indeed, what information about Russia will you normally find in a global textbook? The same trite stories about matryoshkas, the taiga and at best some mention of Russia's size. Is that the kind of information a pupil needs to develop his/her cultural awareness, to understand the differences and similarities between his/her own and the target language's country's culture? I doubt it.

I firmly believe that to enable out students communicate freely, represent our country and assimilate foreign culture rather than replace their own with it, we need textbook that would provide basis for comparisons and lead to a better understanding of students' own culture through the target language country's one.

How can it be achieved? If we take a look at the currently most popular Russian EFL textbooks, we shall see that there are different ways to do it. For example, "Happy English.ru" is based on a story, where the main characters are a Russian boy and his Scottish friend (as well as plenty of secondary British characters). The story takes place in Russia, in England and in the USA, thus enabling the students to compare the three countries, to see what communication problems can arise there unless we take the cultural features into consideration and how we shall be interesting interlocutors only when we remain ourselves. Another advantage of those textbooks is that they promote common values that Russian students hould be able to appreciate and share with their foreign peers: freedom, democracy, friendship, willingness to compromise and to help each other. I am sure that by teaching such values we as educators help to build a brighter future for us all.

A slightly different approach is used in the "Enjoy English" textbooks, which constitute probably the most popular Russian EFL course there is. There the authors take us by the hand and let us read about British museums, sights, schools, public services etc. But every time we read, say, about London, we turn to our own hometowns and discuss what we could show to our foreign friends, what is good and interesting about the places we live in etc. Thus we elicit a lot of student-generated content, which they can use later on. I remember how I was teaching a class in which the pupils told me that they have no idea where they could take a foreign friends in our small town as "there is nothing interetsing or good about our place", they said. I changed the question slightly and asked the students what they like to do in the summer or on week-ends. And they told me immediately, that they like to go on walks in the shadowy alleys, that they love swimming in the river, that they play football at their school's sports ground, that we have one of the largest sugar plans in the country (a sight!), that they like to walk along an ancient fortification (another sight!) etc etc. After this discussion I once again asked them to make the programme of a three-day stay for a foreign friend, and this time they started to protest that three days are not enough to show a foreign friend all there is worth seeing inthe town. This change of attitude was made possible only by the leaner-centered approach and the exercises and stance of the "Enjoy English" textbooks. This has enabled me to develop a lot of self-respect and interest towards their own as well as the target language's culture in my students.

Yet another popular course is "Millie-New Millennium English". This course tries to get across the idea that there is something interesting in every country and culture. When pupils learn to talk about houses in their first year of studying English, they learn about igloos as well as typical houses in other countries. When they learn to talk about toys, they learn about the customs connected with toys, taht exist in japan and are celebrated on father's day and Mother's day there. And every time students talk about such things, they keep discussing what good things they'd like to introduce in their own country and what good things they could share with their foreign friends. When children grow up a little, the focus shifts slightly. At this age critical thinking needs to be developed, by which I mean that students need to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction, between what is good for them and not so good, and decide what they can do to make their own lives and their world better. They read about heroes and role-models from their own country and from other countries too, they read about a successful project which helped to make the otherwise dull town a tourist attraction and immediately they try to design a project to improve their own hometown, they read about traditions of different countries, and those of their own take about 50 per cent of the texts. This helps us to ensurethat students do not take all good things for granted, that they realise that often hard work is needed to build on any country's rich cultural heritage, but that their own background allows them to improve their own lives and be their own masters with due respect to other countries and cultures.

This is what I can say about the cultural and informational advantages of local textbooks as compared with the global ones. One could also talk about how a textbook should consider the students' first language and arrange grammar and vocabulary teaching accordingly. Localisation, or even better, creation of EFL books in and for specific countries help to design a better, more efficient textbook which makes the task of teaching English and educating students much easier for the teacher.

I was recently searching for some interesting material to use in class when we talk about professional qualities and future jobs, and came across a number of jobs that are really strange. Here's a short list which you may want to use too:

1. Elephant tender - someone who takes care of elephants in the zoo

2. Hot Walker - a person that walks the racehorses around after a race.

3. Dinosaur hunter - a person who searches for fossilized dinosaurs

4. Cereal box author - the author of advertising on cereal boxes

5. Dog walker - someone who walks dogs professionally

6. Odor Tester - someone who checks if deodorants and anti-perspirants really work as planned

7. Citrus Fruit Dyer - a person who dyes (colours) citrus fruits to make them look better in shops

8. Fortune Cookie Writer - someone who writes predictions to be put inside fortune cookies

9. Fountain Pen Repairer - someone who, well, repairs fountain pens 9some of those pens are very expensive)

10. Wrinkle Chasers - someone who makes sure that new leather shoes have no wrinkles

11. Chicken Sexer - someone who sorts baby chicken into male and female ones

12. Oyster Floater - a person who floats oysters on a barge in running water until they are completely free of impurities.

13. Dog Food Tester - in some countries testing dog food on dogs is prohibited, so there is a professional dog food tester who actually inspects dog food to see if it is good.

14. Whiskey Ambassador - someone who is responsible for choosing only the finest whiskeys and teaching clients the proper way to taste and admire them.

15. Weed Farmer - someone who grows weeds to sell them to horticulture schools and labs so various people can do research and studies in them.

And, talking about weird job titles: in the 19th century there was a position in Royal palaces in the UK that was called a Necessary woman. Can you guess what job it was and what it is called now? the first person to guess correctly will get an audiobook and tasks for it from me via e-mail. The audiobook is in public domain, but I've designed the tasks myself so hopefully you'll be able to use it directly as a listening exercise for your pupils.