Success is that old A B C; ability, breaks, and courage.
Charles Luckman
Success in learning English is not possible without language abilities, breaks and courage to use your knowledge.
Lingva-Plus Educational centre, established in 2002, is an approved educational centre registed with Primorsky region Educational Authorities. It is located in Artyom (30 km from Vladivostok). It provides language learning and early education opportunities and has 2 schools: young learners school for children under 7 and languages school for Primary, Secondary school students and adults. Our language school specializes in teaching English, Chinese, Korean and Russian.
(Power Point Presentation, slide 1)
Students come to the centre at a variety of ages and from very different educational background and the programmes are designed to help them to excel and achieve great results. We create an integrated learning environment to meet the diverse needs of our young learners and develop a life-long love of learning.
The English Department creates and implements high quality, targeted English Language programs. All programs are administered through the local authorities.
Our involving approach helps Secondary school students to take the opportunities to acquire and apply new fields in language knowledge and to explore new areas of cultures with the help of the whole range of outside the classroom activities. We inspire our adult students to expand their professional and educational horizons and enhance their business relations.
"Lingva-Plus" Centre seeks to enable all students to achieve their academic potential. Students are not only given the opportunity to develop their skills in English, but also in making presentations and appropriate visual or oral communication.
Teaching staff are very well qualified and experienced, making use of a good range of materials which goes beyond the normal textbook contents. Examination results show a high level of achievements. Students from the Centre have a good record in both of gaining places in school, local or regional competitions and of success at university
Started as a very small educational organization Lingva-Plus centre has grown rapidly both in size and reputation, winning the respect of parents, employers and the education authorities alike. Now we are a dynamic and innovative organization that is committed to offer not only а large number of languages courses levels and young learnres development programs but a wide range of language learning experience through organizing contests, taking part in international project work, guiding student's research in linguistics, etc.
We provide support for professional development of new teachers' staff through teaching development activities such as extended courses in Great Britain language centres, workshops, consultations and involvement in teaching development projects.
Lingva-Plus Educational Centre promotes the sharing experience and good practice among our teachers as well as local community teachers.
And now we'd like to share our experience in organizing local language contest Lingviada.
Aims, structure and benefits of Lingviada.
Lingviada is one of the exclusive technologies of the Centre. This is a wide variety of different activities which allows students to measure themselves and demonstrate their achievements. First and foremost it provides opportunities for students to have an experience using the language skills they are struggling to acquire. As they interact with their peers from other schools in the town, they gain confidence and motivation to continue with renewed efforts in language study.
The aim of this language contest is to make students overcome intellectual and diversity challenges and identify their own level in 5 C's. All tasks force five goal areas (Five C's) of foreign language education:
- Communication
- Cultures (through the study of the language students gain a knowledge and understanding the cultures that use the language)
- Connections (learning language provides connections to additional bodies of knowledge that may be unavailable to the monolingual speaker)
- Comparisons
- Communities
(Slide 2)
Lingviada is a local language organized and hosted by "Lingva-Plus" Educational Centre for 3 days. It's organized with the help of the donations of city corporate sponsors. Students and teachers can benefit in many ways, no doubt this contest allows students of different levels and their teachers demonstrate their language proficiency in different ways:
Testing, Talent Show and Cultural Diversity Quest.
- Testing for Comparisons (to compare and contrast the native language and the language being studied).
- Talent Show for Communication (it could be face-to- face or across centuries through reading literature and making performances).
- Cultural Diversity Quest (a cultural diversity panel game - quiz and activity section) for Cultures and Connections.
- Together all these elements, thus Lingviada itself enable the students to participate in multilingual communities at home in a variety of context and in culturally appropriate ways.
Testing is divided into two parts - computer testing and blank testing. They take into account Language level and age of the students. They are developed in order to begin measuring how well students are progressing in learning language and provide feedback to schools, teachers, and students on areas of student strengths and weakness that will help to improve instructions.
Talent show is a show consisting of a series of individual or group performances (as a play) by amateurs who may be selected for special recognition. An audience gathers to be entertained and applaud to performers. The singers, dancers, steppers and spoken-word artists who were involved appeared to be enjoying themselves as they showed their stuff.
Cultural diversity Quiz is a key element of Cultural Diversity Quest to help raise young people's awareness of cultural diversity. Diversity competence includes understanding cultural values and customs other than one's own. Participating in such a quiz and other cultural events is one of the best ways to broaden student's knowledge of culture. It contains sets of questions touching Culture, Political system, sights, famous people and events. (Appendix 1). This event is an excellent educational opportunity for getting to know more.
Activity section (another element of Cultural Diversity Quest) is a great way to engage both junior and senior students in shared activities (solving crosswords, making puzzles and associations) while promoting messages of acceptance and harmony. Working together on their entries, students not only learn about different cultures and languages they also discover more about each other's heritage in a positive, inclusive environment. Students "travel" through culture of different countries (Britain, the USA, and Australia). All the tasks are composed according to the age and the level of students. Students get points for each correct answer. Then points are counted and the winners are chosen.
Number of contestants.
| Year | Number of school | Number of participants |
| 2006 | 10 | 76 |
| 2007 | 21 | 126 |
Judging
Contestants will receive a certificate and a prize according to judges' ratings.
Lingviada financial resources
Lingviada is a time and money consuming event. Before organizing a contest, it is essential to know the budget allocated to it. The members of Lingviada Committee evaluate the financial resources available to ensure the contest's success. They draw up a detailed budget of each of the planned activities, including awarding ceremony and prizes.
Lingviada has 2 sources of funding: Lingva-Plus centre and corporate sponsors. The help of sponsors also stimulates community involvement. But it`s not a simple thing to do in a small town: done correctly, it can bring money and build important relationships. Done poorly, it can cost money and waste many people's time. Here is the guide on soliciting, acquiring and retaining corporate sponsors.
1. Consider who could benefit from sponsoring Lingviada event and why through determination its audience
Sending "blind" proposals usually does not work well. Knowing your audience helps you figure out who to solicit.
The Lingviada audience has a lot of people involved: students, their parents, their friends, teachers, schools administration and their families and sponsors can reach a large audience in one shot. So we usually solicit to a wide range of corporative sponsors (banks, shops, businesses and organizations)
2. Make out Lingviada sponsorship benefits and opportunities
Make sure the benefits are distinct and enticing enough to encourage sponsors to donate.
Lingviada sponsors are usually offered:
- sponsor banner displayed at event;
- sponsor name announced at event;
- coffee table supported by sponsor (i.e., each person at the table receives a promotional item from the sponsor and the sponsor's logo is displayed at the table);
- sponsor name or logo in organization's newsletter;
- sponsor name in newspapers and local TV programs reporting on Lingviada event;
- maximum publicity, and their logo in ALL publicity material.
The level of donations is usually fixed and there are some sponsors interested in a half cash, half in-kind (product donation) sponsorship.
3. Obtain sponsors. There are 2 ways:
Make lots of phone calls.
Make up the potential sponsors list, get on the phone and pitch your event as a great marketing opportunity.
Members o of Lingviada Committee call local businesses to find out if they're interested in reaching the market offered focusing on the company benefits. Calls usually vary with the type and size of company. Members o of Lingviada Committee speak directly to owners at small local businesses. At Medium-size and large companies they contact marketing departments that take care of sponsorships.
Send proposal letters
A proposal letter is customized. It's important that sponsors feel you are asking money specifically from their company, and they're not just part of a massive group.
A proposal letter is kept short. As in phone calls, concentration are on the exposure the company will receive for their money, not on how the money will help us. Sponsor benefits are easily found in the letter and they're easy to understand. Every letter includes Lingva-Plus name, address and phone number, the date and location of Lingviada events and the address to send checks and in-kind donations. Members o of Lingviada Committee always call potential sponsors to find out their thoughts on sponsorship.
After receiving the proposal letter, some companies call to say they're interested in sponsoring Lingviada. Most do not. It's a planned action to follow up about two to three weeks after sending the proposal. If they say yes, congratulations! We are on the way to get sponsors.
4. Cultivate your relationships with sponsors
We always make sure sponsors see that we value their support. Once a company has agreed to sponsor, we send them a thank-you letter after the event. We ask them to take part in awarding Lingviada winners and their teachers. If sponsors cannot come to awarding ceremony we usually let them know how successful the Lingviada events were, how many sponsors took part, the final attendance count. We don't drop our sponsors once they've agreed to send money. Even after the final tasks of the event have been taken care of, and that last thank-you has been sent, we keep in touch with our sponsors.
Lingviada 2007 Highlights
- The forth successful English-language Contest for local students.
- Twice increasing number of participants.
- The First Prize in the English Essay Contest, The First Team Prize in Talent show are won by the best.
- Daniel A. Kronenfeld, a Political and Economic Officer from the Consulate General of the USA in Vladivostok made a speech at the opening ceremony.
- People from the Consulate General of the USA were honorable jury members in the Cultural Diversity Quiz about the USA.
- The event was broadly covered by local media.
- The forth English contest was held to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the Diplomatic U.S.-Russian relations.
- The Biggest Far-eastern Air Line Company and banks are among sponsors.
- Successful businessmen and local authorities presented trophies, prizes and certificates at the award ceremony.
Now Lingviada needs no introduction. Tried and trusted for four years, so excited it
accompanies the learning process, reinforce and inspire both students and their teachers.
So, try, maintain sponsors links, mix them with old and trusted activities and brand new
hi-tech, share our 4 years experience in organizing and enjoy sharing results in teaching
and studying English undertaking in the classrooms before with the whole
"world".