This week marked the launch of our English evening classes at the university under the inspired title ‘Culture Club’! We felt that what the students needed was a chance to improve their English conversation skills in a more relaxed setting than their formal lessons. We also wanted to be able to build friendships with the students and have the freedom to focus on a range of subjects. We spent a lot of time producing posters and fliers and distributing them to students and to the different departments. The classes run Monday-Thursday from 5pm until 7pm. Each day has a different theme and is organised by different members of the group depending on their particular interests and expertise. Monday is dance and drama, we do English literature on Tuesdays, choir on Wednesdays and on Thursday we have a discussion and debate class.On Tuesday we had our first class and had no idea what to expect: if anyone would turn up, what level of English, or knowledge of literature they would have. We were so pleased to see about five students waiting for us and a few more turned up as we were starting. It was interesting just to chat to them about what English literature they knew. Lots had studied some at O Level and some were very well read, one girl had read Tolstoy and said George Elliot was her favourite writer! One poem we read with them was Shakespeare’s sonnet ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’. We went through it line by line and they seemed to really enjoy discussing the imagery once we had translated some of the archaic language. Quite fun for the geeky Shakespeare loving English students in the group!Thursday’s conversation class was even more successful, with a turn out of thirteen. The students were really eager and after some entertaining warm up games and introductory exercises they engaged enthusiastically in a ‘balloon debate’. Everyone had to take on a given role and argue why they should be chosen to go to the moon to set up a new society. It worked really well and lead to some very animated discussion!The choir, dance and drama groups have lots of potential and we hope what we work on in them will culminate in a cultural show which we plan for the end of our stay. It is so good to be able to get to know some of the students and interact with them through these different creative activities. It is also really satisfying to see activities which we have planned go so well!Mary Anne MacLeod