This semester I again got the inspiration for two of the project lesson plans from my students. Hereby I want to express my thanks to them and acknowledge their contribution to the project.

The first one, Exploring the issue of violence through Anthony Burgess’s "A Clockwork Orange", was inspired by a group of 3rd year bachelor students in the program of English teaching, who prepared a whole table top game to explore the various aspects of the literary work. Namely, Kristína Klampárová, Zuzana Kmeťová, and Simona Petrová.

This is how it looked during their class.

Since it would be very complicated to transform their ready made game plan to an online version, I decided to rework it into two versions: a powerpoint game and a card game.

The second lesson plan, Exploring cultural stereotypes through David Lodge’s "Changing places", was inspired by 2nd year bachelor students in the program of English teaching, namely, Michaela Blahová, Dominika Kóšová, and Diana Považanová.

Here are examples of some activities included in the lesson plan, such as a bingo game focused on revising the knowledge about the novel, 

a drawing activity in which students should describe a character from the novel through 5 items representative of the characters,

and a poster that will be the final outcome of the lesson, reconstructed through each student contributing their own ideas about the cultural stereotypes about British and American people they observed in the novel or in modern media, and about stereotypes in general.

This week my bilingual third-grade students are giving presentations on the topic The top 3 books everybody should have read by the age of 18. Their task was to prepare a presentation choosing and introducing 3 different books that every student should have read by the age of 18 and explain their choice. They were asked to comment on the benefits reading these books brings to students’ life, the theme, and the highlights of the chosen books. The students demonstrated a high level of maturity, knowledge and understanding of the books’ ideas and motifs which was reflected in captivating and interesting presentations. Among the discussed books belong, for example, Animal Farm; The Color Purple; We Are the Weather; The Secret; To Kill a Mockingbird; The Hunger Games, All the Bright Places or How to Think Like A Roman Emperor. Through deep and complex interpretations, they proved that young people still read a lot and they have much to offer in terms of their opinions and perspectives on the literary world.

Currently, in our lessons we deal with literature, reading and its importance in the life of young people. After my students had read different books and prepared a presentation about them, I decided to dedicate two more lessons to teach them how to write a story in the first place and what principles they should follow when writing. The second half of the lesson was focused on the development of creative writing skills by writing a story on their own. The task was to write a one-paragraph-long story in groups (it could be also longer), each group receiving the same random words (ghost, potato, sock, saucepan and capybara) but a different genre (romantic story, horror story, adventure story, mysterious story, sci-fi and historical fiction). Despite the fact that the words had nothing to do with each other, I was positively surprised by the outcome of their work. They demonstrated a rather big amount of creativity and imagination that I would like to acknowledge by sharing a few of their stories with you.

Even though it is not the time of Halloween, I would like to share with you the materials I have been working on this week. They are closely related to the lesson plan Public Holidays – Halloween I designed with my colleagues, but one of them can be equally used teaching any other public holiday or holidays in English-speaking countries in general. The first document is a warm-up activity that can be used instead of the one we initially planned in our lesson plan, in other words, instead of students brainstorming symbols of Halloween, they would be given cards with names of holidays they need to match to cards with symbols or traditions that represent them. Sometimes the pictures are obvious, sometimes they need to think about what they actually represent to guess the corresponding event. Public holidays we usually deal with more in the lessons are presented in greater number in this Pelmanism activity.

The other document is a mind map of the same topic that is supposed to be the result of the lesson, created and presented at the end by students. I prepared it as an extra material for the lesson plan in order to use it also separately as a teaching and learning aid. You are welcome to used both documents if you find them useful in the future.

On May 6, Dr. Juričková held a 3-hours long workshop with the third year bachelor’s degree students of Badij Mohktar University in Annaba, Algeria, focused on friendship.

The session started with the description of pictures depicting groups of friends from film and television. The students had to identify who the pictured people are, what are their relations, and what personal qualities they display in interaction with each other.

This was followed by a discussion on what friendship is, what qualities are important in it, which form can it have, and lots more, where students were encouraged to share their own personal experience from/about frienships.

Afterwards, the students were presented with 4 philosophical accounts of friendship from different historical periods, from Aristotle, Cicero, Thomas Aquinas, and C. S. Lewis. The students had to discuss which of the characteristics of friendship defined by these men are still relevant nowadays, in orderto observe that human relationship do not change that much throuought history, no matter how much the society develops technologically.

After a break, we continued with developing our own definitions / theories on friendship.

In the last activity, the students had to imagine a situation that a student from Slovakia would come to Annaba for an Erazmus exchange program for 6 months. They had to advise this student on how to find new friends in Annaba, what to do and not to do to find them, and how to maintain friendship with people back home.

On May 5, Dr. Juričková from Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia, organised an on site workshop with the first year master’s degree students of Badij Mohktar University in Annaba, Algeria, which she visited on the occasion of Erazmus teaching mobility.

The lesson started with an introduction of the socio-historical context of the era when Wordsworth lived - the time of the first industrial revolution, the romantic literary movement, and the life and work of Wordsworth.

Despite some problems with the technology, we then proceeded to the analysis of one of Wordsworth’s sonnets, "The World is Too Much with Us". The students discussed its environmental message and its lasting relevance.

Students from Department of English Language and Culture engaged in COIL on Good Health and Wellbeing Practices across Cultures at Constantine the Philosopher University on 25 April 2024. 

They explored various topics like Chinese Tai Chi, Icelandic Hot Springs (Geothermal Baths), Indian Ayurveda, Islamic Fasting (Sawm), Japanese Forest Bathing (Shinrin Yoku), Maasai Community Gathering, Maori Haka, Mediterranean Diet, Nordic Hygge. Their discussion led to fruitful conversations on experiences and opinions, highlighting benefits of these practices.

Are there common characteristics in these health and wellbeing practices across cultures?

• Trying to promote spiritual and physical health, relief body from stress

• Unity with the group, not individual

• Focuses on getting better

• Some of them you can do alone, more like a style

• Takes more time, focuses more on quality of life

Which one(s) of these health and wellbeing practices have you tried or would like to try? Why?

• Mediterranean diet - but with more meat than fish, health benefits - eczema got better 🐟 🥑🥜🫑🫒

• Nordic Hygge - good therapy for mental issues 🧘‍♂️🧘‍♀️🐱🐶🐔🍵🪴

• Would like to try the Japanese forest bathing - relaxing, a good way of healing 🚵‍♂️🌳🌲🐝🐌

Many thanks go to professor Fella Benabed who led the workshop and students who brought their insights into this current topic, especially Alisa Eliovich and Anastasiia Vidiuk. 

We look forward to next COILS!

Diana Židová, Department of English Language and Culture, Faculty of Education, CPU in Nitra

What are myths? How are mythical heroes portrayed in ancient and modern stories? What are the contemporary adaptations of well-known mythical stories? These were the questions that were answered during the interactive first session of the workshops organized by Partium Christian University. Teaching this topic has been a great pleasure for me; the participating students were so motivated and engaged in the discussions that they also reignited my passion for teaching.  From Percy Jackson to Aquaman and Wonder Woman, we shared our ideas on myths’ adaptations, and concluded that myths will always stay with us, even if in constantly new forms.

Borbála Bökös

Partium Christian University, Oradea

On March 22, 2024, we  co-organized together with the University of Pannonia   the international conference on English Language and Literatures in English, EL&LE 2024. During the conference, my colleague, Julianna Borbely and I disseminated the main objectives of our project Fostering Students’ Interdisciplinary Competence through the Action-Oriented Approach and COIL led by CPU in Nitra and presented the aims and procedures of the ongoing COIL sessions organized by our university. We shared the lesson plans and teaching activities used during COIL and discussed about the  feedback of the students involved in a very animated discussion.

With my colleague we have tried our lesson plan Historical, Cultural and Social Context of the USA with the third-grade students, and we would like to share with you their amazing work on the poems related to the culture of the USA. The second-grade students even prepared a special decoration for their older schoolmates, bringing the American spirit to the lesson and creating a unique atmosphere. The whole lesson plan we created is focused on the interesting facts regarding history, art and culture, literature, but also geography. By applying teamwork, different organization skills and critical thinking, they were able to fulfil a variety of tasks, for instance, they managed to distinguish sights typical for the USA, interconnect specific aspects of the American Revolution, and finally, they used their creativity and imagination to write a poem based on the following task:

Write a poem about the USA which consists of 4 verses. You need to include in your poem the following things typical for the USA:

1)    Music style                                  3) Sport

2)    Food                                            4) Famous person

 Use some words from the newspaper articles and stick them on the paper (about 4).