The rules for discussions

One person should be the  chairperson  (moderator) of the discussion.

1. The chairperson has to suggest specific categories of articles or videos and ask one of the members present at the meeting to choose a specific category.
If more than 50% of the members are against that category then the chairperson must ask another person to choose another category.
The rule is: If the group members are not satisfied with the category 3 times in succession the chairperson will choose the category and their decision will be final.

2. After choosing the category the chairperson will propose one of the sites from that category and will ask one of the members to choose an article from the chosen site to read.
If more than 50% of the members dislike that article the chairperson will ask another person to choose another article.
The rule is: if the group members are not be satisfied with the article 3 times in succession the chairperson will choose the article and their decision will be final.

3. Then the chairperson will ask the group members to read that text/article. If there are any words or sentences they don’t understand, members should ask questions about them.
After reading the text some time will be provided for questions to be asked and answered. Group members will ask questions about the text, which will be answered by other members. If nobody has any questions about the text then some questions about it will be asked by the chairperson.

4. After the discussion, members need to give the article a rating (from 1-5). The average rating for each site will be shown in our VK group (https://vk.com/fastdiscussions) in the topic: "Rating of sites for each category"

List of categories for discussions

Updated list of categories:

Politics
Sports
Environment
Economy
Geography
History
Movies
Interesting facts
Cars
Music
IT (computers)
Science facts
Learning English
Traveling
Nature
Aviation (safety, planes, helicopters, so on)
Family (kids, relatives, neighbors)
Design (interior, repairs,…)
Food
Psychology
News by English levels

P.S. If you want to suggest new categories or want to add some sites (that you like) for each category please write them in our discussion group in Skype or in our VK group in topic "Suggestions"

Learning branch of Fast discussions

Now Fast discussions group has a subgroup "Fast discussions _ Learning branch". The rules are the same as for the "Fast discussions" group. But the main goals of this group are to correct pronunciation and also to explain new words.

This group is a great opportunity not only for people who are not so advanced in English but also for more advanced people who want to work on their pronunciation.


The group doesn't have specific time for discussions. These discussions usually are led by native English speakers or Advanced English users and the schedule of discussions depends on their free time. This is why, , we are announcing the meetings of this group the day before (unlike the "Fast discussions" main group where talks are happening usually spontaneously)

Do you want to be the chairperson in our group? Then you need to read this

So, if you want to try being the chairperson yourself in our group for a discussion, we will give you such an opportunity. The chairperson suggests their categories and sites or uses the categories and sites that we already have. They then also organise the meeting and ensure everyone that wants to has a chance to speak and controls the discussion in general.

For that the member of our group needs to put a request into this specific topic of our VK group (https://vk.com/topic-81415351_30956671) or under this post here. or under this post here. They also need to write a date and time when they would prefer to hold the discussion.

After that we will provide an experimental discussion where this person will be the chairperson. If everything is satisfactory and nobody is dissatisfied with this person, he/she can become one of the chairpersons.

The list of people who can be the chairperson will be updated regularly in our VK group ( https://vk.com/club81415351 )

From 5th January we are starting 2 new branches for Fast Discussions: Video discussions and Book discussions

Unlike Fast discussions main group, in these groups  we are going to announce  the topics of each discussion  before the meeting.

In the Video discussions group we are going to watch some short videos, and then discuss them. We are preparing questions for each discussion beforehand, so you can see them before the discussion.

 In the Book discussions group we are going to read some short text, and then discuss them. For that we are using texts with questions for them.

Active members of our groups can also suggest new books or videos for these groups.