At the English Speaking Club we had an unusual meeting which is called a potluck. By the way, the word pot-luck appears in the 16th century and used to mean "food provided for an unexpected or uninvited guest, the luck of the pot." It is a gathering of people where each person or group of people contributes a dish of food prepared by the person or the group, to be shared among the larger gathered group. Guests may bring in any form of food, ranging from the main course to desserts. The main idea is to try the dishes of different cultures, share impressions about them and communicate in an informal atmosphere.

So, at our potluck we had a variety of Ukrainian, Mongolian and Algerian dishes. The students presented their food, spoke about the ingredients used and shared their recipes.

We had a special guest from the US – Anne Giocondini, English teacher, English Teaching Assistant for the 2014-2015 Fulbright U. S. Student Program cycle. As a member of this exchange program Anne facilitates learning English and provides a native speaker presence in Kirovograd Volodymyr Vynnychenko State Pedagogical University and Chizhevskii library. This is the second meeting with her at our club. During the first meeting we got acquainted, talked about likes and dislikes, food, traveling and so on. Of course Ann shared her impressions about being in Ukraine, overcoming the language barrier, using public transportation, education in Ukraine. She suggested us this idea of having potluck meeting and we decided to have one.

After trying really delicious meals cooked by our students and teachers we discussed not only food but more serious questions. The students discussed problems in our educational system and in Ukraine in general, and gave the solutions of the existing problems. We can say that this meeting gave everybody “food for thought”.

Liudmyla Herasymenko, PhD in Pedagogics