2025-2026 Meetings and Classes

INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS 2025-2026

REGISTERATION IS OPEN. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Classes and Meetings: September 2, 2025-May 8, 2026

Calendar breaks for the 2025-2026 year:

• September 2, 2025 Meetings and Classes begin
• November 24-28, 2025 Thanksgiving Break
• December 20, 2025-January 4, 2026 Winter Break
• Spring Break TBA
• May 4-8, 2026 Last week of classes

Email for more information or to join us.

Meetings are EDT or UTC-4 or DST or UTC-5. This time planner can help determine local time.

Meetings are detailed below:

• American English and Culture 
• American English for Kids
• International Bible Study

American English and Culture Classes

Thursday, 9:00-11:00 AM, Zoom

Thursday, 7:00-8:30 PM, Cornerstone Lutheran Church, Room 102

Join us to improve your American English language knowledge, skills, pronunciation and accent, and learn and experience American culture. Expect the unexpected: talk, listen, share. Learn quickly and efficiently using  to meet immediate needs and develop long term skills. This approach helps people move forward quickly to improve specific practical knowledge and skills. All levels are welcome. Practical work can include:

• Building relationships helps to improve understanding willingness to risk talking and sharing.
• Critical listening practice helps to improve understanding and to adjust pronunciation.
• Telling and talking provides one-way and two-way opportunities to communicate. When we tell, others are passive recipients and when we talk we have a conversation and a give and take. Both have important roles in communicating both formally and casually. 
• Reading expands language skills by introducing variety in phrasing, vocabulary, and idea generation.
• Creative Journaling prompts help to expand English language development and expression as well as highlight areas for further development.

Resources:

• Reverso: conjugate and translate
• Poetry Foundation Nursery Rhymes: These rhymes provide fun basics for pronunciation and cadence of the English language.
• Fun and Humor
• Reader's Digest Puns and Jokes
• Pun Generator
• Vocabulary Building:
• Vocabulary.com
• 1000 Common Words for Adults: common words in English that are beyond counts and address adult vocabulary needs
• The 100 most useful social English phrases - UsingEnglish.com
• Pleasantries Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
• Wiktionary: Frequency Lists: Wikipedia scans and counts word frequency
• Spell Zone: word list pronunciation and definitions in English. This particular page provides lists in groupings
• Word Play: 18 Ways To Play With Words
• Word Count Generators: 
• Word Frequency Analyser: count the words in a document, categorize them, map them, graph them, and so much more.
• Browserling: This tool just counts tools and characters. Scan the list. 
• Word Cloud Generators: determine common words and visually display them
• Word Clouds
• Free Word Cloud Generator
• Tag Crowd
• Word It Out
• Word Art
• Wiktionary: International Phonetic Alphabet helps pronunciation from and to many languages.
• Glosbe: The biggest online dictionary
• Mastering the American Accent App: Load this free app and work on the go.
• From the Apple Store. 
• From Google Play.
• Writing Help
• Word Tune
• 
  

Curriculum Topics by Month Under Construction

September (4): Getting to Know You and Getting to Know Me

October (5): 

November (3): Thankfulness

December (3): 

January (4): New Beginnings

February (4): 

March (4): 

April (5): 

May (2): Wrapping up the year final projects and pizza

American English for Kids: Friday, 6:00 - 6:30 PM, Zoom (private link)

Join other school-aged Friends to play games and talk to each other about school and other fun stuff. Keep your English skills sharp!

International Bible Study: Monday, 8:00-9:00 PM, Zoom

Join us as we continue our reading of the Old Testament. The Bible is available in all languages and allows us access to read in a familiar language and then compare English language. Conceptual topics in the Bible open us to conversations about language, culture, ethics, and beliefs. Read and use the resources to discover how American Christians use the Bible in worship.

• Bible Gateway offers many versions of the Bible in many languages. Read on-line and side-by-side with two languages.
• Bible Study Schedules and Guides: find all you need to read along on this page.
• Cornerstone Lutheran Services are live and recorded. Use this resource to become familiar with the language and flow of American-style worship as well as gain insight into the Bible readings.

Teaching and Leading Language and Culture Discussion Group: TBA, Zoom

Join teachers and leaders to talk about current challenges and solutions as we reach out and care for our communities.