First English Club

     Sunday, the 6th of September, marked the first meeting of the Liberty English club. David had given me a little preview of how it would work last Wednesday but this was the first time I had done it. I think it turned out well.
     The night started off with greetings and a get-to-know-you game. Then we rolled into a word game. The students had to think of words beginning with a certain letter for five different categories. Unique answers gained points while the same answers from different teams would cancel out points. After that, we split up into the groups for discussion and vocabulary. That part of the night starts with vocabulary. David prepared ahead of time a story from an article and chose certain words or phrases that might by new or tricky. Like at camp, they would try to figure out the word and, if they couldn't, I'd explain what it means. After that, I read the article. That was so they got an idea of what it should sound like. I then had each person in my group read a different paragraph to help with their individual reading and comprehension. We finished off with questions.
      Since this is a ministry of the church, we want to see these people eventually become Christians and join the church. So some of the questions can have a spiritual aspect for them to consider. It's not always overt. In this lesson we talked about a man who stepped out of his own life to help a woman in need. A few of the questions asked why a person would do that. One of the students in my group isn't a believer and definitely attributed her hypothetical actions in a similar situation to appeasing karma.
     We had fourteen people in total, including me and David. Nine were students and three were members of Big City. The Big City people joined in to learn as well as help guide the students. Everybody could speak English to one degree or another; some better than others. But we had enough that we could divide into an intermediate and advanced group for the vocabulary and discussion. I also met several new people who I had not seen before. I believe they were friends of regular attendees.
     After the discussion, we came back together to sing a few songs (1960's classics). John Denver's Take Me Home, Country Roads is a popular favorite. David had to leave a little after 7PM but I stayed until after 8PM to play games with them. For a first time, I think it went well. There is obviously going to be a lot of getting used to it. But for a first foray into the world of English clubs in Ukraine, I enjoyed it. It felt a lot like camp. I'm also wondering if my observation from the last post is an indication of how the next few meetings will go. If so, then I'll be telling about some of my failures, or at least difficulties, in the coming weeks.
     Alright, have a good week and I'll talk to you soon.