Cypris Village has been providing an educational environment of English learning teaching for people from many countries. We keep creating fun experiences through various activities for everyone As part of our many plans, we are glad to announce that we are publishing our very first Cypris Magazine! We will try to make it a quarterly magazine. Each article will contain wonderful stories from Cypris Village. We hope you will enjoy!

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The Magazine Team•

What are the special features of Cypris ?

I would have to say it's how nice eve- ryone is. It's really amazing. When the

group was about 20 members I thought it was big enough. I didn't want it to get bigger

because I was afraid we would attract people who

might disrupt the balance of the group. Luckily for everyone, I was

completely wrong. Choosing to open up the group has turned out to

be one of the best decisions of my life.

What is our goal ? That is a fantastic question! I can't answer it though. haha. I have my

own personal goals for what I would like to do in virtual world dis-

tance education but as for the group, well, it's up to the group. I am

hoping another leader will emerge to continue the mission of provid-

ing a nice and safe place for English speaking practice. We do hope to

make Cypris Chat a non-profit organization with 5 or 6 officers joining

to run the daily operations of the island. It's still too early to speculate

where Cypris will go from here at this time. Let's keep making friends,

practicing, and having fun.

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Could you tell us what are you doing here?

Do you mean what I do at Cypris? Firstly, I research ways to help English

learners practice what they have learnedin school. I do this by providing conversa-

tion activities that motivate people to speak to one another. Once or twice a week I teach lessons to keep me active in teaching and the virtual environment. I really try to getpeople to talk talk talk talk talk. Like Ana.

. Tell us some great memories of Cypris Oh. Wow. So many. The day Mystie brought me over to her land and said, “I want to sell my land but I don’t want to sell it to anyone because it’s on a west facing corner of the island. Do you want to buy it?” I bought from her and started Cypris. Or the times whenpeople say, “Cypris has changed my life.” That makes me cry. I re-member the belly laughs we have had over and over again, beauti-ful travel times, fireworks, movies together, flying, boat rides dur- ing sunset, dreamy sims, games, crazy avatars, gesture craziness, and even a couple odd moments with strange people we have met.Fun times.

=)

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I live in Kyoto, Japan. I currently work atRitsumeikan Uni-

versity, in Kyoto, as an English lecturer. I like teaching at Cypris because the students are from all different parts of the world and are very motivated to practice theirEnglish.

I’m an English instructor at a Buddhist university in the

Republic of Korea. I am in- terested in the future of cyber education, and Cypris Village gives me the opportunity tolearn how to teach online us-

ing 3D environments. Onlineteaching requires continual learn- ing by teachers, and that keeps me up-to-date and informed. Learners and teachers share theirknowledge together.

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For the past 18 years I lived in Columbus, Ohio up to January 31 of this year I wasworking for a company pro-

viding tech and customersupport but now I’m un-employed and living tem-

porarily with my mother. Ilike teaching at Cypris be-cause it’s a rewarding activ-

ity, it’s fun and I really love meeting interesting peoplefrom around the world!

I’m living in Washington State. I’m a student/I’m a workshop assistant for educational technology consulting business. I like teaching at Cypris becauseI meet lots of interest-

ing and nice people fromaround the world!

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* This statistic is six months old, it may differ at the time of publishing.

Cypris Village is a multicultural community that has people from all over the world.The fol-lowing graph shows the rate of members who get benefit of Cypris Chat and attend its free lessons and activities.

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In January 2010, a special course called “Read- ing Circle I” has started in Cypris. Learners who wanted to participate in this course were required to have 500 participation points andto purchase a book containing seven short sto-

ries to use in the class. The learners received homework each week to prepare for the nextweek’s discussion according to six roles, Dis-

cussion Leader, Summarizer, Connector, Word Master, Passage Person, and Culture Collector. “ The reading circle was a great experience, I really enjoyed every class.” said Mystie Slade. Vamp Merlin said “The reading circle helpedme to speak out loud and be part of the dis-

cussion.”. “Reading CIrcle I” became a whole new way for learners to practice English ina very interesting virtual environment. n

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Vamp and Christine, two of our hosts at CyprisChat, had a wedding at Cypris Village on Janu-

ary 27th 2010. Vamp is Australian and Christine is from China. They met each other at the old Cypris Village and started dating on August 8th 2009. Of their first impression of each other,vamp said, “She was shy and cute ”, and Chris-tine said that she was surprised with his Austra-

lian accent. Vamp is known as a nice guy in the Cypris group, and Christine was attracted by his kindness and gentleness. After dating each other for a while, the two finally held a wedding ceremony at Cypris Village. The two are nowknown as Cypris’s lovely couple; let’s congratu-late them on their wedding and wish their hap-piness forever!j

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Being a member who was very shy to use voice, Lora has become now an aspiring learner in the wholecommunity of Cypris. Lora is a kindergarten teacher from Poland. When she first started to come and observe the lessons, shecouldn’t speak any English, and al-ways using translator to communi-cate. However, she has been work- ing very hard to improve her English and started talking more and more. She has become very active in the group, too. Lora has been solving difficult questions at quiz chairs and scavenger hunts. Her story should be encouraging and motivating to everyother English learners, for sure. d

If you walk on the bridge in front of the clubhouse at Cypris, you will probably notice this name on one ofthose stars, Himiko Allen. Himiko is from Japan and she’s one of the hosts in Cypris Chat. She’s been hosting Memorizing Activity each Friday , which has helped many learners to learn new expressions. Although she is a busy housewife in real life, she is still spending her timeon English studying as in “The Read- ing Circle” classes and planning some events for the community. We are all looking forward to Himiko’s nextplan for Cypris very much!

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For More Informationhttp://cypris.ning.com