Welcome New Teachers!!

Once again Unbound would like to welcome the allowing new teachers to BKC and Moscow, and wosh them a very wonderful time adjusting to the weather!! Elizabeth Story in St. Petersburg; David Haynes in Troitsk; and in Moscow Michael Jones, Gavin Slade, Steven Bilthuis, Sarah Holliday and Kimberly Northrup. Please don't hesitate to ask your DOS/ADOS, recruitment, and accommodation manager for assistance, and those of you with creative writing skills, consider expressing yourself in Unbound!

Borovitskaya News

It's business as usual here at Borovitskaya. The timetable is filling up, ad is the teacher's room at times. As any teacher who uses Borovitskaya knows, were going through a bit of a change around at the moment. One positive result of this is that the 2 Oxanas (teacher coordinators) have moved onto the second floor so they're much more accessible. Phase two of this change around is starting this weekend and will result in an extension to the teacher's room and reinstallment of the teacher only computers. We will try and carry out this work with the minimum of hassle to teachers.

Natasha (ADOS young learners) is busy planning the annual winter camp. This year it's at Marfino about 25 km outside of Moscow and is from 3rd - 13th January. Those interested in working at the camp should contact Natasha here at Boro or at Tverskaya (most mornings).

Katya, our resources manager, has asked me to remind everyone that she can only supply books, cassettes, tests etc for Borovitskaya classes. You can get materials for non-Boro classes from central resources at Tverskaya.

Hope the seminars go well. Unfortunately, Natasha, Guy, and myself won't be able to make it. We are on study leave, putting the final touches to our DELTA assignments.

See you on Monday!

Dennis

Tverskaya News

Happy Thanksgiving! Thursday November 22nd is American Thanksgiving. All those interested in gorging themselves on turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie (or a vegie equivalent) meet us at the American bar and Grill near Mayakovskaya Thursday night after work around 9:30ish. Also happy birthday wishes go out to Gary Robert. He's celebrating a landmark birthday, hard to believe he's a day over 25. If you see him, buy him a pint. If you prepare at Tverskaya you should be seeing a new face next week, our new senior teacher, Glen Hough. Give him a warm hello. He'll be taking over as Ados Jan 1st. So, enjoy the seminars, and I'll see you in the pub.

Diane

Kropotkinskaya Report

Yet another month has passed by, and I feel like the first set of cartoons above! Everything is pretty much the same here, except the flies have disappeared (other than the ones hanging from the fly paper). The most significant change was the departure Jenna from administration. She has taken six months leave to have her first little one. All the best to you from everyone at Kropot. Jenna!! The new face you might have seen around is Natasha, her replacement. Kropot. teachers, please come into the office to introduce yourself, and don't hesitate to approach her about any concerns (at the school, of course, not that your football team is the pits).

It's also book buying time again, so please write down your requests in the teacher's room. The school still hasn't bought that computer, but the administration tells me that it's in the works. Finally, I encourage everyone to think about writing something for Unbound. It's on the Web now! You'd be famous!

Mike

Elektrozavodskaya

One of the oldest BKC schools, Elektrozavodskaya continues to grow and develop. We now offer four languages- English, German, French and Italian, and this year we are running a teenage German course for the first time. We teach adults, teens, Chatterbox and more Playway groups than ever before. There are three FCE groups and a brand new CAE group- the first such to run at our school. Elektro has eight classrooms, busy both in the mornings and in the evenings. Elektro is now the second largest BKC school in Moscow, after Borovitskaya.

The Elektro resource library is always growing. Recently we added the new Cutting Edge and Headway books for Elementary and Pre-Intermediate, as well as a selection of exam related materials. In addition to this there is a 'Literature Laboratory', a file of poems and short stories for teachers to experiment with.

Elektrozavodskaya continues to pilot new courses. After successfully piloting English File last year, this year we have two groups running Headstart as a beginner course. So far the feedback has been very positive.

The best thing about Elektro, however, is and has always been the excellent team of teachers working there. This year, as in previous years, we have a good mix of experienced teachers (three of whom have diplomas) with new and energetic ones. Altogether there are 18 teachers working together in a professional, yet very relaxed almosphere. I enjoy working with them very much.

The management team at Elektrozavodskaya consists of Daniel Humphries (ADOS) and Olga Chukhrova (Administrator). Elektro was recently placed under the auspices of Wayne Rimmer (DOS).

Daniel Humphries