Dear friends hello, I have a great pleasure to write to you for the first time, I am a russian lady from Kiev the capital of Ukraine which is an european country in the west of russia. Also I am trying to prepare myself to exams of the pedagogic institut to become a teacher of english in school. I would like to ask you to help me & send me: 1- school essays (compositions) on different possible subjects(topics, themes),because they are the important part of exams. 2- typical exercices of english grammar in school & high school with corrections(separately), 3- english proverbs of UK, UK) 4- any other idea or method about teaching & studing english as a foreign language for russian people. an other important question: me & my husband we need very much to practice our speaking english in an english speaking country (UK,USA, or Canada), because without good speaking english we have problems in jobs & very low wages! so for that we seek an english speaking family or person who may host one of us for a month or more, & who may be interested in us as: -tutors of our languages for free to their childs or to them(I can teach russian or ukrainian, my husband can teach russian or french or arabic, he is a journalist, a translator & a teacher),-or just as friends or futur representants in Ukraine if they have interests or business. it's just an idea so I am ready to answer any your question. & thanks a lot for any proposal or idea or help. I must tell you that I have only off-line, so I can not visit the web, & my email system is premitive! (without windows, only uupc via dos!) so I can not decode attachements (besides begin 666 file.*, if it's not a very big mail!) I'll be very glad to find penpals among you, to improve my english, exchange ideas about teaching & studing, & know good people & other countries. any reply will be deeply appreciated. I wish you all the best! Sincerely, Oksana Travnikova, Kiev, Ukraine.(in the former soviet union.) tel:+380 44 4639663 (at home).