Coffee, Tiramisu and Scrabble at Vita NOUVA

On 29th March 2008 the English Language Café met at Vita NOUVA, Bornova. Although some members could not come this week we had a four and a relaxing time. We had coffee (thank you Hakan) and tiramisu (thank you Berrin), and played English Scrabble. For some reason the Englishman came last :-(...

Rob will be a away for the next two Saturdays, but here are our plans for the next two meetings. If there is any special topic you would like to talk about, add your suggestions as a comment below.

The next two meetings:

• 12th April 2008 with Nicolas


• 19th April 2008 with Rob

In Alsancak: Spanish Language Cafe pictures!

Cafe Eylul, 19 january 2008
1st Spanish language cafe in Alsancak,Izmir

















Tapas Bar, 16 February 2008
2nd Spanish language cafe in Alsancak,Izmir
















Cafeteria of Desem, 22nd March 2008
3rd Spanish language cafe in Alsancak,Izmir

Spanish Language Cafe

First of all..Dear Rob, thanks for your invitation to your blog! Nice idea ! :)

Well, about Spanish Language Cafe, it is usually in Alsancak (the ones I arrange) since January of 2008 and it is very nice and enjoyable. The first meeting was in Cafe Eylul with 15 people, the second meeting in Tapas Bar was also with 15 people and the third meeting -last weekend- in the cafeteria of Desem was with 7 people...all of them on Saturday afternoon.

During these meetings in general, as activities we have played cards explaining the images/words of them so the student need to say exactly the word from the card, working vocabulary and also played "Tabu" in Spanish! I might post pictures very soon but you can appreciate them also in my website http://www.vivaele.com/ in Rob's flickr (see the link on the right) page and in facebook in my Spanish general group named VIVA ELE which means Live Spanish as a foreign language! :)

For April there will be a meeting, for more details - soon :)

Saludos , Janine

The Language Café at Vita NOUVA

The third meeting of The Language Café at Vita NOUVA (Bornova Kipa) http://www.sgckahve.com/bornova.htm took place on Saturday March 15th, 2008.

This English language café is taking on an very international feel. Berrin, Işıl, Emre and Merve are Turkish, Yens, who joined the café for the first time, is German and Nicolas is French. We missed Güneş and Taylan (Turkish), and Wojciech (Polish) but I guess they'll join us next week. Hakan and Burak, the owners of café Vita NOUVA both speak French and had a chat with both Nicolas and Yens in Fench. Yens is also learning Spanish so it was good for him and Merve to meet and greet each other in Spanish. Merve is learning Spanish too and is a regular at Janine's Spanish language café in Alsancak, Izmir. The best part of the afternoon was when Rob slipped away to do the weekend shopping and the language café carried on in English without him! Next week Rob will be unable to go to the language café but everyone has agreed to go anyway which is brilliant.

What is a Language Café?

A Language Café is not so much a place but a concept which sees language learning as being a social activity which doesn’t just have to take place in a traditional classroom. Drawing on the existing and growing café culture around Europe, this new way of language learning takes place in real cafés and also in other publicly accessible social spaces such as libraries, community centres and institutions of learning. Language cafés support themselves by collaborating with local coffee shops, coffee companies and coffee suppliers and while teachers are on hand to help in the early stages the cafés are run and sustained by the learners themselves. Together learners decide what and how to learn together and meet at times and in places that suit their needs and interests. A group interested in books and reading might wish to meet in a book café or library, a group of traditional learners might wish to meet in their college café, a group of film buffs could meet in a cine café and of course those wishing just to meet and chat on a regular basis could meet in a regular café. Indeed a Language Café could be set up in peoples’ homes as well. The choice is yours.

To find out more about the language café project visit www.languagecafe.eu

The remainder of this site is devoted to Language Café goings on in Izmir, Turkey.