Pupils Work

A day with a native speaker

On 8^th of June we met Richie Mullaney. He leads the group of activities from „Learning Without Borders “organisation.

He is a native speaker from Ireland. The topic of our lesson with him was about teenagers’ language. Richie is a young man, so this topic is easy for him. He spoke to us and gave funny examples from life, so the lesson was nice and not like a normal lesson in school. There was a lot of interaction, so everybody could participate. I learned many new words which will help me to communicate with teenagers from England.  I recommend this type of language lessons to everybody and I wish I had more  of them  myself.

Gaya Kopczyńska, class IIIa

On the 8th of June the whole secondary school took part in workshops with a native speaker. My class took part in the Shakespeare Drama workshop with Richie from Learning Without Borders. The overall bases of the workshop were that we would perform scenes from Shakespeare’s most famous plays. Before we cracked on with the first scene, Richie thought us the abiotic pentameter, which is the rhythm in with Shakespeare should be said. Then we were prepared for the first scene, it was the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. Obviously we had to practice in pairs, preferably mix-gender ones, but we ended up with two male Juliets and 2 feminine ones.

Romeo. After around 3 minutes of grinding the text some pairs got to show off their achievement before everybody. Unluckily the male pair drew the short straw and their magnificent performance (which was ended with a kiss) went right on to Richie’s Snapchat. Next up we had Hamlet and the 'To be? Or not to be?' monologue, unfortunately we didn’t get to say it but we watched a version of it. Then we had yet another monologue, this time from Macbeth. The monologue was the Dagger monologue performed by Patrick Stewart. And the last play was  ' Midsummer Night's Dream' which is basically high school drama. Again we had time to practice our lines and then 4 people went out there to present. I was one of them and i was playing Demetrius. In my opinion we turned out great, overall this workshops were a lot of fun. Richie as a very funny was just great as the host. His take on the topic was focused on us having fun. He even said that when he sat down to write this workshop, he thought 'Ok. how do i make it so they don’t get bored?' and that was exactly what he did with us. There wasn’t a moment when i felt like just listening to someone mumble about something, no, i felt like taking a part in what Richie was doing.

Aleksander Kowalewski

On 8th of June, we had workshops with the native speaker - Richie Mullaney- the guy from Dublin who organizes meetings with young people in all Europe. Second classes had a meeting at about 13:15 in the audiovisual Hall. Each group, had workshops on different themes. Richie told us about accents in the UK, exactly about four main types of them: northern one - Geordie from Newcastle, Scouse from seaside Liverpool, Cockney from the city of London, and Brummie from the center of the UK, from Birmingham. Richie told us what are the typical words in each of the areas, and then we repeated them out loud. He showed  some examples of indigenous people, eg. an interview with the famous rocker Ozzy Osbourne, who comes from Birmingham, or movie with Jason Statham, from London. We could also see a typical outfit of a teenager from Newcastle, or what are the Londoners’ habits.

At the beginning we were embarrassed. Richie was very loud, but we didn’t want to repeat the words after him. After some time we broke the ice, and had fun.  At the presentation there were a lot of words, which already none of us remembers, but Richie said he didn’t want to play the role of a teacher. He wanted us to begin to speak with courage and not to be afraid to speak out loud…, and of course to have fun. As I mentioned earlier, at the beginning we were silent as mice, and at the end we were as noisy as rabid monkeys. It was a fantastic lesson!

                                                                                              Lubek Pirjankow

Meeting with Richie Mullaney

On 8th of June a native speaker-Richie Mullaney visited our school. He prepared for us very interesting workshops. We watched and took part in a presentation about William Shakespeare. It wasn’t  just a presentation, or lesson.  We could practice dialogues, see some parts of films and generally we had a great time. We also had an opportunity to meet someone who speaks English like real English people do. Mr. Mullaney is a very kind man, with a sense of humor. I think every student from our school enjoyed the meeting with a native speaker.

Zuzia Jóźwiak, class I

Debinka Day of Languages

Last Wednesday in our school there was an event called „Language Day”. All the classes were preparing lessons to present it on that day. My class had Lithuania.  I think that Language Day is the best option to teach young people about other countries.
During our first lesson, everyone stayed in his classroom. We were brushing up our projects. After that the whole fun began. Everything was organized very well. What I liked the most were decorations. This event  is one of the most cool ones at school. You stop the school year routine and learn in an easy and cool way about other countries. There were some rules like: you can’t say anything in Polish. Often you have to pay some money for decorations but it is not a lot. The whole class gets united.
I think it is very good to have “Language Day” at school. If you want to learn something about other countries, organize a “Language Day”. You won’t be disappointed. It is really cool. I would like to have it more often. I recommend it to everyone, old and young. I got to know many interesting facts about many, not very popular countries. It was the only day at school when I didn’t want to go home.

Jan Stachecki

Brainiac

In our school there are many competitions but one of them stands out, its called Brainiac. It’s an awesome concept of making something that is appealing to the contestants as well as for the juries. As the winner I must say it was good fun, the event had a versatile task-pool and an innovative idea of writing it in pairs.
Each year there are types of tasks that are traditional such as: True/False based on a short movie that we watched, writing a short text (a poem or a story).Everything is balanced in terms of the contestants’ knowledge. Although every grade has the same tasks, for the final judgment we are divided into 3 categories (1st graders, 2nd graders and 3rd graders) so that it would be fair.
If you were considering signing up for next year’s run I would surely recommend it to you.  If this still doesn’t convince you, there are prizes for the first 3 places (bonus marks as well as rewards such as books and other English-related souvenirs)

Olek Kowalewski, class IG

Review

Recently, together with other students from our school, we have seen  a play called “Selekcja Etyka”. It was written by Andrzej Wieczorek. Action takes place in a closed room in which a group of people are trying to get a job in a big company. The show tells us how now they treat candidates in huge corporations.

On stage there are four actors (two men and two ladies). They have to deal with a few tasks. The person who does this in the best way gets the job. Suddenly the candidates find out that some of their partners are “rats” who are spying on them. There is a couple in love, but  they also have to rival for the job.

I think the play is really nice. The plot is interesting and surprising. You cannot  predict what will happen next. The show is also a little bit funny. The play says something about the present times too. Nowadays, sometimes people think that having a good job is more important than anything else in the world. We can learn from that play that having a job isn’t as important as family, friends and things like that.

Generally I enjoyed the show and I would like to recommend it to others.

Zuzia Jóźwiak, klasa IA

Review of „The Ticket to Birmingham”

Last Friday I was in the theater. We saw a play called „The Ticket to Birmingham”. There were only two actors – Richie and Kaidar.

For me, it is a kind of surprise ‘cause the performance was divided into a couple of sketches. The best sketch was about a granny, who wanted to send (by post) a lot of strange things, such as e.g. a bomb. But my favourite was another one, because I had a chance to take part in it. That was  so cool! Firstly, I had kind of stage-fright but I didn’t give up and finally I just did what I had to do – I sent a “pie” to Vienna.

In conclusion, I think the play was really good and very funny. What I really liked was such a good interaction between actors and the audience. To sum up, I think that was the best play I have ever seen. Maybe just because I have not seen a lot yet.

Jan Jankowski

Workshop with a native speaker

On March 13^th 2015 students from class III Lower Secondary School, had the opportunity to take part in a workshop with a native speaker.
At first we were discussing different ways of communicating. We came to a conclusion that nowadays it is very easy to communicate with anybody we want, even if they are very famous or live on a different continent.
Late, in teams, we made posters about advantages and disadvantages of different ways of communicating.  My group did social Medias, like Facebook, Twitter etc., other groups worked on such topics as  the Internet, mobile phones, google glasses.
The meeting was very enjoyable, even if we didn’t learn anything particularly new. In my view we were talking about subjects very obvious to us.  Nevertheless, I believe that meetings with native speakers give us the opportunity to be in touch with original accents and we get a chance to check our knowledge of English language.

 Jula Bąkowska, klasa IIIG

Quiz : Knowledge about the English Speaking Countries

On 4^th November 2014 in our school took  place a competition checking our knowledge about the English-speaking countries, especially the United States of America and Great Britain.
Ten  pairs of students from each grade of the Lower Secondary School took  part in this event. Every group chose one country that they were representing, and were equipped with virtual 5000 $ on start. The goal was to achieve as much money as possible before the end of quiz. Money was given for answering questions correctly. Rivalry was very fierce and finally to the second stage qualified only 3 groups, all from the third grade.
As a reward the winners received 2 extra percent added to their English final marks. The winners who took the  second and the third place  1%. equally.
It was  great fun, which everyone enjoyed.

Kuba Samorek, IIIA

Meeting with Davina Shiell-Watson from Scotland

Last Friday our class  had a meeting with Mrs. Shiell’s daughter about  the Scottish independence  for which the people of Scotland will be voting  this summer.
The lesson had two parts.  The first part was a presentation about how Scots feel about  the possibility of full independence, and what their main arguments for and against it are.
The second part was our chance to debate about this topic using points we  heard about  in the speaker’s presentation, and which we had prepared during the  previous English lessons.  Two   groups were created, for and against the independence and we debated until the end of the lesson.
Sadly we didn't come to any conclusion because of the shortage of time. I think this meeting was a good chance to practise English, and to understand decisions made in Europe and reasons for making such decision.

Paweł Lewicki, class IIA

Brainiac

Last Thursday  (8^th of March) we participated with  some other students in an English competition called “Brainiac”. We came in pairs because we weren’t  supposed to be working alone, but with  a partner.
The competition started with a couple  of exercises which were very unique and original –  we had never seen tasks like that before. We enjoyed solving them. All students, who were taking part in “Brainiac”, had at least 90 minutes to finish all  the exercises.
Finally, after the jury  counted points, the best contestants  from each class  were rewarded . It was  avery nice and enjoyable competition.

Paweł Pazdrowski and Milan Stanišić IIB

Meetings with Native Speakers of English

Magda Mielcarek klasa IB:
Today I was at the meeting with a native speaker from the USA. The name of the lady was Brittany. We were talking about the differences between Britain and the USA. Ms Brittany told us about slang in both countries. In my opinion the most interesting thing during this special lesson was a short movie with Dr. House and Ellen. They were speaking in slang of their country and it was very funny. I learnt new stuff and now I know some new things about the US and Britain. Then, after watching a movie we got into groups and we did some exercises with slang. Next, we saw some new behaviors in Britain and the USA. I think that was very interesting and also funny exercise. In my opinion that meeting was very nice and I’d like to know more and more about both countries. After this lesson I want to get to know more natives and maybe from other countries, because I want to know something about their own countries. For example, today, I know that British people like to eat and they like to say to someone “SORRX” and “THANK YOU” while in the USA people like to take food into a doggy bag because they give too big portions of food. In one word, I can say this was a very interesting workshop.

Marcin Ciesielski IIA:
On 23.01.2014 we had a pleasure to meet Ms Brittany. In fact I expected to see a woman in her middle-age who would talk for 3 hours abut boring stuff or something like this. It was a nice surprise to see a young lady with a smile on her face, lady full of energy .
She began from a few words about herself. She told us that she was from the USA but she had a short episode with Britain in her life too. After that, our first challenge was to listen and read short descriptions, prepared by her, and write the answers: Britain, if they described this country or the USA if the description was about the USA. This short exercise created a good mood and we were pretty relaxed.
Most time we were laying with slang used in Britain and the US although we had to create some performances to show the behavior of Brits and Americans., which were given to us on slam sheets of paper. For example, my group had to show others the scene which was presenting how Americans eat in the restaurants. The point was that they eat very fast and their stay there doesn’t last more than one hour, sometimes less that 20 minutes. There was a lot of fun with this.
Last thing that we were doing during this meeting  was to play the game in which we had to recognize the food from the pictures and guess from which country it was.
When our English teacher said “Okay, ten minutes left” … I was like “No way. How it is possible?” For me it was a really great lesson. Lesson which showed us that if we make fun from learning, learning is a nice way to spend time.

Natalia Prądzyńska IIIA:
On the 23rd of October as a whole class we had an opportunity to talk with an American woman who came to our school. We weren’t really prepared for anything in particular, the only thing we knew., was the fact that she was going to tell us something  about American  music. The whole topic seemed really interesting  and was a total steppingstone from the only two things we talk about at our school: respect and ecology. I guess we all enjoyed the meeting because of the fact that it was something different, though there were  a lot of things which really surprised me and disappointed in a  way.
We started our classes with saying out loud what our favorite US artists were. It was nice of her to ask about that, because we had an opportunity to speak for ourselves. The next thing we had to do was to name all the music genres we knew and Ms Brittany wrote the all on the blackboard.
After this short introduction, our job was to divide into groups of three, take out a sheet of paper and a pen. Brittany told us to write down numbers from 1 to 10 and explained what we needed to do. She played ten different songs and we had to guess the title of the song, the artist and the genre. It was quite difficult and we didn’t do that well. People like Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and 2Pac appeared in there and we knew them, but the hardest thing to do was probably to guess the title. Naming the genre went quite well, though, we had some mistakes in our answers.
Then we talked for a while about song lyrics and what certain genres usually tell us about. At the end Brittany told us something pretty useful, because she explained what was happening with American music within ages. We got to know why in 20s and 30s all the songs were so positive and when was the time that all these depressing melodies started to  appear.  It was all connected with the US wars, crisis or victories. I guess that was the best thing out of all we did and I’m going to keep this in mind for the future.
To sum things up, I’m sure that inviting native speakers is something we really need and that’s a great idea to do it regularly. We have a chance to hear the American accent. Learn new things and open up enough, not to have problems with communicating abroad.

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"

Last week our class went to the Cinema Apollo to see a play. It was called "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". It is one of the most known novels written by Robert Louis Stevenson. The same author wrote also a very popular book "Treasure Island".
The place of action takes place in London in the XIX century. Mr. Utterson (who is a lawyer) investigates the relation between his friend Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. At some point of the play it turns out that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are in fact the same person. Since the play isn't very long and hasn't got a lot of plots I would not like to tell you what happened.
In my opinion this is one of the best plays I have ever seen. I can say that because I didn't fall asleep. The best thing is the musical part. Although it is kind of a thriller, it has a few very funny songs. I usually don't like these sort of plays, but it turned out really great.
I recommend this play not only to children but also adults too. I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I did. :)

   Karolina Szczygieł IB

I really liked this play. The language was not very difficult, perfect for our skills right now. The actors  performed very well . Action was quite swift  and there were  many dialogs. I liked the way  the narrator was talking to us .His voice was very interesting and the way he was speaking was quite magic.
I think I could go to see this kind of plays more often. Because  it was in English , I had to focus more on the dialogs. It was a very nice experience.

Anastazja Kurosz, Ib

Paulina  Kacprzak  added:

At the beginning the narrator was talking to us about what it means to be good and what’s bad. He asked us “What’s the worst thing you would  want to do ?” Each  of us thought about it …… then the show started.
I think it was a  lovely show. It was very well presented by great actors. It was instructive. Everyone should see this. The show is for teenagers and adults. Children could not understand it.

School Trip to Scotland.

Tomek Korobacz class Ia

In September 2013 some students from our school went on a trip to Edinburgh. We saw some beautiful monuments. We visited a great museum called Dynamic Earth. A lot of activities were interactive, so we had  fun.  We had also visited Holyrood Palace and then climbed Arthur’s Seat, the highest point around. It was tough, but we managed! Camera Obscura, the world of illusion, was also great fun. I really liked this trip.

Pawel Pazdrowski, class IIB