NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

The 8th of January becomes the starting point of the English-Speaking Club meetings.

The topic of this meeting is discussion of ways to celebrate New Year and Christmas. The participants share with their own ideas. Some of them prefer travelling to staying at home because of being young and not having chair days yet. They suggest spending their time in Bukovel as one of the expressive and unforgettable ways to have happy New Year and Christmas time. Most of the participants like to have this time with their families. So, it gives a chain-react for the following discussion of every pair.

Working in pairs the members of the Club discuss making resolutions when having the clock striking 12. As the result of this activity it has been said that it’s better to make plans for everyday life. It is more practically and leads to the best results in your life.

The most interesting is discussion of differences between Ukrainian and American traditions of celebrating New Year and Christmas. The leader of the Club as the American citizen admits that Americans like to make New Year’s resolutions. They prefer watching American football and drinking champagne. On New Year at 12 they present kisses to those who are standing opposite at this moment. He also adds some words about special way of celebrating these winter holidays in New York.

In a team contest one group is chosen as a leader in making the best and creative decisions how to celebrate their next New Year 2012. The best way is parachuting with testing. You will have an opportunity to land without problems pronouncing a list of English words chosen in advance with no mistakes.  In other case your parachuting will end plaintively. Some of the members wish to travel into the past or future. Some have a desire to be in many places at the same time.

Here you can look through the plan of the discussion and answer the following questions by yourself.


Expressive expression of the day: 

When people are children, their toys are cheap. When we are adults, toys are getting more expensive.

Find online:

1. Bukovel as a resort

http://www.bukovel.com/en 

2. The American way of celebrating New Year

http://www.ehow.com/how_2129661_new-years-day-chinese-style.html 

3. Christmas in different countries

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_most_Americans_celebrate_Christmas 

http://www.ehow.com/how_2129661_new-years-day-chinese-style.html 

4. New Year resolutions

- http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/New_Years_Resolutions.shtml 

- http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2011/01/01/1401364/american-resolutions.html

You can find this information at the Information Center “Window on America”:
Klebanow, Barbara. American Holidays : Exploring Traditions, Gustoms, and Backgrounds / B. Klebanow, S. Fischer. - Moscow : Progress Publishers, 2005. - 174 p.

Let’s look up in the dictionary: 

the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ 

1. New Year resolution – a promise that you make to yourself to start doing something good or stop doing something bad on the first day of the year. "Have you made any New Year's resolutions?" "Yes, I'm going to eat more healthily and give up smoking." 

2. American football – a game for two teams of eleven players in which an oval ball is moved along the field by running with it or throwing it.

3. American traditions - a belief, principle or way of acting which people in a particular society or group have continued to follow for a long time, or all of these beliefs, etc. in a particular society or group. Fireworks have long been an American tradition on the Fourth of July. Switzerland has a long tradition of neutrality.