Specialists from the university's Foreign Language Training Center use the Communicative Language Teaching methods. It's greatest difference from the traditional ones is that it allows developing verbal skills faster and in a more efficient way — up to 70% of the study time is focused on it. All in all, lecturers from ITMO train the students in three areas: science, literature and arts. During lessons and different events, the students play games and participate in quests, watch movies, discuss works of art and write poems — and all of that is done in English.
"The students don't get any homework, and that plays a great role: each lesson has its logical conclusion, it focuses of developing and training some particular skill", shares Elena Borisova, a specialist for the Foreign Language Training Center. "The children at "Sirius" are really motivated, and interesred in studying. At daytime, they do general studies, and in the evenings we conduct specialized lectures on all subjects, workshops, and watch movies in English".
It's not easy to join the "Sirius" center, one has to pass the competitive selection, but its totally worth it. The main concept of the center is balanced and creative development of personality, so at Sirius, best lecturers work with the talented children, and leading universities, corporations and research establishments partake in elaborating training programs for them. Many lectures are published on the Sirius website and are in open access.
ITMO University started to collaborate with the Center in the beginning of this year; in May, Rector Vladimir Vasilyev and Elena Shmeleva, head of the "Talent and Success" Foundation that organized the center, signed a collaboration agreement. As part of this agreement, ITMO organized a series of project groups in robotics and "smart" technologies, as well as contributed its inventions to the center's show floor.
We'd like to add that the November session at Sirius features a record number of students — 900 participants from 61 regions of Russia.
