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On March 16 a meeting with Raymond Murphy - the author of the world famous series of English grammar textbooks: “English Grammar in Use” and “Essential Grammar in Use” took place in Samara State Aerospace University within the framework of the conference “Peculiarities of grammatical skills formation in various stages of English language teaching” (Innovative Approaches to ELT).
Teachers of Samara universities as well as students, undergraduates and graduate students, who showed the best result in the academic competition “I Love Grammar” and the contest “Ask Raymond Murphy” talked to Raymond Murphy.
The communication with Mr. Murphy started with a half-hour press conference. The questions were very different: from a purely professional to a sufficiently personal.
Murphy answered a number of important questions for those who have started self-directed language learning. “Everything depends on the individual abilities. Someone has a good hearing, he quickly learns the material. It will also be easier for the one who loves to interact with people. Motivation is of great importance: you have to think not only about the good grades, but also to encourage yourself with something else. And do not forget about the language practice”- the author gave a piece of advice to the people who have been studying the language without a teacher.
The students asked a series of questions about the books. The author did not expect the popularity of his publications in the process of working on the textbook and often asked himself: who will buy this book? In addition, Raymond does not consider himself a writer: “In England they say that the writer or author is the one who constantly writes. I would call myself “haswritterner”.
Hereafter the meeting took the form of an open grammar lesson. Raymond Murphy drew the audience's attention on the most difficult cases in the use of articles and verb tenses in the English language, confirming each item with examples. The guest joked a lot, answered questions of the audience directly during his speech and tried to speak Russian.
“Looking at the teaching manner of Mr. Murphy, experiencing the magnetism of his personality, the public seems to have realized that this particular kindly treatment to the listener (reader), free from the usual didactics, became the secret of his textbooks’ success,” – noted one of the meeting participants.
After the conference everyone could get an autograph of Raymond Murphy.
The textbook of Raymond Murphy is a practical guide to learning English as a foreign language. The main difference of his teaching materials is available presentation of the material. In the words of Murphy, in his series of English Grammar in Use he tried to tell of the difficult things in simple way. Judging from the series popularity, he managed to do it - the textbook has been republished four times, and it becomes more popular after each new edition. Since recently, “Murphy Grammar” has got a new lease of life in electronic format, which made it even more accessible.
The International conference “Peculiarities of grammatical skills formation in various stages of English language teaching” took place in Samara from March 16 to March 19, 2016. The work of scientific and practical conference was held in different formats: plenary and breakout sessions, “round table”, seminars and workshops.
On March 17, the Department of Foreign Languages of Samara State University of Economics took up the baton. And on March 19 at the base of state funded educational institution high school No. 11 was organized a workshop “Formation of academic and professional skills in the English language class” with Yves Smith (USA) and Carolyn Westbrook (Britain), who held workshops on teaching English for academic purposes.
It is planned to publish a collection based on the result of the scientific and practical conference.
The meeting was prepared by the joint forces of SSAU Department of Foreign Languages and Professional Communication and Cambridge University Press. The event was organized by Lyudmila Kozhevnikova, Associate Professor of SSAU Department of Foreign Languages and Professional Communication and Angela Tatosyan, Educational Supervisor of the Moscow Branch of Cambridge Universe Press.
Professor Victoria Levchenko, Head of the Department of Foreign Languages and Professional Communications, commented:
During several years the Department conducts international conferences, inviting foreign experts in the field of teaching foreign languages. Each year the conference theme reflects the global contemporary social and cultural and scientific development trends in the methodology of teaching foreign languages. Cooperation of the Department with the National Association of Teachers of English, Samara Public Association of Foreign Language Teachers and Cambridge University Press allow us to invite the highest level experts. During the Department's participation in international projects we have got a number of partners around the world who have great pleasure in coming to our university, noting the high level of preparation and holding of seminars and conferences. At our events you can always meet with scientists, authors of textbooks and scientific publications, attend their seminars and lectures.
In 2009 Cambridge University celebrated 800 years, and its publishing was 425, the first books were published by the University Press in 1584. There are branches and representative offices of the publishing house of Cambridge University Press in the USA, Australia, Latin America, Africa, Asia and almost in all European countries, including Russia.
Cambridge University Press is a non-profit organization, and its revenues are used only for the publishing expansion. It is controlled by Cambridge University Syndicate - the official committee consisting of leading professors, which ensures high quality publications and an unrivalled reputation in the world. The literature in all fields of knowledge, scientific journals and collections are published in Cambridge.
This year, the Moscow office of Cambridge University Press, our permanent partner has provided a unique opportunity to our university to receive Raymond Murphy.
Olga Zhuravleva, group 37 302.50 “Advertising and PR”
Anna Safronova, Faculty of Economics and Management
Photo: Catherine Bulgakova, Photo Club named after V. Kakovkin “Illuminator”
