V Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2013

Every progressive educator should clearly understand a role that the modern school carries in the world. Now that school appears to be a specific organization within the larger community context, a teacher should see the operations of the relevant aspects of the system(s) within which s/he works. While in the school community, a teacher understands and implements laws related to students' rights and teacher's responsibilities. Those rights and responsibilities are relevant to each other. Equal, appropriate education for all students, which will benefit from the schooling by cultivating and developing their interests, skills, and the positive attitude towards life.

While completing my internship at Mykolayiv School 22, we were deeply impressed with the atmosphere that the teacher Pervova Marina Markovna managed to establish around her. The students' centered community served as the eye-catcher in an ordinary school. According to our observations, Marina Markovna kept encouraging the positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation of her students.

The teacher used the multiple teaching and learning strategies to engage students in active learning opportunities that promoted the development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance capabilities that would help students assume responsibility for identifying and using learning resources. Marina Markovna saw the possibilities to learn English far beyond the classroom curriculum. She was a proficient manager, as well as a facilitator, in arranging and holding the extra-curricular activities for her students. We were lucky to be able to contribute to the organization of the English Language Week-2012. We got a precious experience in the coordination of such event. Here, the, purpose of our paper is the following: to show the role of the extra-curricular activities both for the English-learning purposes and for the development of the sound environment in the school community.

Upbringing leaders is very important for the modern school. Although the perception of the leader changed throughout the past decades. A leader altered from a strictly authoritative to fairly democratic. Thus, the modern school has to upbring such leaders. To become ones, children should be open to the changes within their surrounding. By understanding the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual aspects of the adolescents' well-being during school years, it is easy to see natural changes going on in their minds, bodies, and subsequently, their lives. On this stage of the development, children should be allowed to make experiments, certainly, under the professional eye and guidance of an adult educator. Being exposed to the freedom and the variety of choices, being taught the accountability for their actions and the possibility to utilize their skills on practice means a lot to the middle and high school student. The teacher on her/his turn should recognize factors and situations that are likely to promote or diminish intrinsic motivation, and should know how to help students become self-motivated.

Extra-curricular activities appeal not only to the interests of students, and serve as a special motivation to be involved in it. In addition, such intramurals promote a life-long learning and bring support to the sustainability of education. English language is a tool to achieve higher goals of the students. This tool is used for specific purposes in the after-classroom communication. Retrieving form the Marianne Celce-Murcia's picturing of the curriculum, five components of it should be taken into account. Those are Language Arts, Personal Language Use, Language for a Purpose, Theater Arts, and Beyond the Classroom approaches to teaching English. Every component deserves attention.

The following agenda was suggested for the English Language Week-2012. Students were preparing for different events beforehand. They had approximately two weeks to manage their projects, to work on the case studies, and to systematize the Musical contest.

Mon. Integrated lesson/the exhibition of the case study projects. (Being trained by different teachers on the variety of subjects, students are developing the critical thinking abilities and the clarity of interrelation of things in the world. The integrated lesson reflected on the necessity to engage students in the active learning with the elements of self-work implications. "Students need to benefit from the curriculum delivered by the active and integrated instruction that does not assume a transescent's cognitive development is in neutral while ideas are exploding around them."(Trudy Knowles, Dave F. Brown) Also, they presented their self-work results.

Tue. Career Day. (The presentations by the alumni of Eurasian Undergraduate Exchange program (UGRAD), who ones took the initiative in their hands and decided to change the world around them. The Alumni would dwell upon career possibilities, professional development, and the value of education. The alumni would serve as the role models for the teens. The panel discussion was aimed to show students the importance of the continuation of the education).

Wedn. Musical Contest (The contest was organized in the form of a free game with elements of dancing and singing. The Peace Corps volunteer and native like guests were invited. Those people dedicated their time to show the students their interest and desire to know students better, and to inspire them to be active contributors to the community. The students were awarded with special school certificates for their participation, and received the official invitation tickets to the English-discussion club D-club).

Th. Fairy Tale (the British tale produced by the elementary school children with the help and guidance of the high school students. The message of the mutual understanding and collegial collaboration is conveyed).

Fr. Merry English (The students produce the Shakespeare play. Here students are self-governed, and come up with their own perception of the play).

What I found neat about the facilitation of the extra-curricular activities was that the teacher constantly used positive reinforcement strategies that helped create a very friendly environment. There were some disagreements among the students, but the students managed to resolve them smoothly. I think it was because students cultivated a sense of respect to each other. Moreover, Marina Markovna paid a special attention to the flexibility and reciprocity in the teaching process as necessary for adapting instruction to student responses, ideas, and needs.

All students got the 'Thank-You' certificates for their unique contribution to the English Language Week-2012 and for building up a safe and merry environment around them.

A modern school aims to educate people who will be worthy representatives of their country. Ukraine could always boast of its people, so smart, kind-hearted, and with a great sense of creativity. These characteristics should be developed in school, especially during the extra­curricular activities. Here the country's identity is conserved and the value of the other cultures is discussed. While doing various projects and case studies, the students gain respect of differences, openness to other cultures; they learn how to act in a strong and friendly community preserving their individuality.

Extra-curricular activities serve teachers as a tool to help their students develop and expose themselves both on personal and professional levels. Once they learned how to keep to their individuality and how to operate in a sound community, students will acquire skills to success in life, and, simultaneously, will present their country best. There will be vicissitudes, different ups and downs, and a school life will always seem a roller-coaster ride for students, but looking back they will smile, because they have had the opportunity to reveal themselves and have never been left behind.

References

1. Essential Teacher. (Volume 1, issue3, Summer2004.) President's message. p60-61. TESOL publications.

2. Marriane Celce-Murcia. (2001 ).Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. P. 13-28. Heinle&Heinle, Thomson Learning.

1. Ronald Carter and David Nunan. (2001). The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge University Press.-P. 80-92.

2. Trudy Knowles and Dave F. Brown. (2000). What every Middle School Teacher should know. Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH. -P. 8-35; 54-70.

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