04 and 05 November 2013

04 November 2013

Monday, I got up, got dressed, had breakfast, and walked to Russian. There, we had a short class (about an hour) where we talked about trains, their parts, and their schedules, before having a brief break and then taking the bus to Kyiv. Once in Kyiv, we took Metro to the Vokzal station, which is the station closest to the train stations in Kyiv (Vokzal is Russian/Ukrainian for “Station;” the type of station is specified). There, we met P’s sister and asked her a few questions before she had to go. After that, we walked to the P/J Vokzal (Train Station), and looked at the arrivals and departures boards to find information about trains that we had been given. We looked for when it would arrive, when it would depart, when it would get to its last station, when it left its first station, and what bay it was coming into (if applicable). After that, we had to go up to the info counter and ask about a different train. We wanted to know when it would run, when it was leaving, and how much tickets would cost at various levels. The person I asked made me pay her for the information – she got irritated with the fact that I couldn’t understand her. While she was speaking nice and clear Russian, it was through one of those grate-like things that muffles and transforms sounds. After, that, we wandered through the Vokzal, through the various waiting rooms (and looking at the ticket counters), and through the passenger bay, where there is access to the bays.  We walked all the way through, to the “Southern Station,” which is the new entrance and where you can buy tickets for different types of trains. Then, we had to almost run back to the Metro station (Metro Station Vokzal is housed in the local train station), buy a token, and take the Metro back to our bus stop, and the bus back to Obukhov, as we were running late to English Club.

A few of us managed to eat a tiny bit of lunch before running to English club. There, we discussed film genres briefly, and asked the students to talk to their friends about their favourite film and genres. After that, some of the students told us their favourite films (which ranged from Iron Man to Warm Bodies to Titanic). For the last 20 or so minutes. we watched James and the Giant Peach, as we hadn’t really had time to prepare anything for club. The students seemed to love it.

After English club, we had tutoring with S (for Tuesday’s lesson) and I had language tutoring with P. With P. I went over my hometasks, and was assigned more. With S, I went over my lesson plans, and got some ideas as to what I should do as reserve activities, but not much more. After that, I helped a bit on the PST University poster (I erased the pencil lines from the storyboard after L and/or MM had traced them in pen). I then went back to my host-family’s flat, had dinner, and wrote my home tasks. I wrote up the field trip to Kyiv – what we did, when we did it, and about our train. After that, I wrote out a review activity for travelling for the cluster. After that, I made sure that I had all of my stuff set out to pack on Tuesday, and read for a bit before going to bed.

05 November 2013

Tuesday, I got up, got dressed, had breakfast, and walked down to School #5, where I observed M review phrasal verbs with his 9th forms. He went over how a phrasal verb works, and then had them had them practice with a few phrasal verbs.

After his class, I went to teach my double, and was able to “observe” a teachers’ meeting – all of the English teachers, the vice principal in charge of the specialized school, and the principal all talked about something. My counterpart, Y, told me to get prepared for class, and not worry about their meeting. I wrote the review on the board, and then wrote the new words on the board. Once the meeting was over, class started. I went back over my daily marks, and re-introduced the unit. I went over the review words, and tried to explain some of them. How do you explain “unleaded (petrol)” to 7th forms? I simply said that petrol used to be leaded, and that I didn’t think that Ukraine uses leaded petrol, but that some places still do. I then translated petrol (benzene) and kept going. Also, the difference between “rubbish” and “litter.” In Russian (and Ukrainian), the word is the same. I explained that rubbish is binned, and litter is just thrown somewhere else. I then had the students write a sentence using one of the new words, before the break. During the break, Y and I decided what I would teach on Tuesday, as I told her that I wouldn’t be there on Thursday. I have a very vague outline of what I need to do for the second class on Tuesday.

After the break, I taught, well, solo, as Y had to run for a meeting at the Dome Culturé (the House of Culture). I had them read their sentences to the class, to see how they did. I have a question that no one seems to answer – what mistakes am I correcting? Grammar? Accuracy? I had a student who had a perfectly grammatically correct sentence, but which wasn’t possible. I corrected her, making sure to emphasize that she was right grammatically, but the sentence wasn’t possible. Then, we went over the dialogues (I paired them up to read), and decided what rules were discussed. We then decided on some classroom rules (raise your hand) and talked about the rules of their flats. I tried to tell them the difference between “should” and “have to,” which seems to be the main focus of the Thursday lesson. After that, I assigned them home task, telling that they could get to work, as we had a few minutes left. I started marking them, and one student asked for clarification – they’d already done the assignment I tried to assign. Yes, one of the students pointed out that I assigned them something that they had already done! As I wasn’t prepared for that, I simply gave them speaking practice – read those sentences aloud, to your mirror, your pets, anything. After that, we had a tech session in the auditorium, where we talked about the necessity of effective communication, and what effective communication entails.

After that, we walked back to P’s flat, where we had lunch and started on Russian. We went over what we’d written, and then had various review activities. One cool one was a dice game, where we had to say where we were going, where we were coming from, an what we were doing each time we rolled. Another was an awesome review activity that dealt with trains and could we understand what the loudspeaker (M held his nose to mimic the muffled and distorted sounds from the loudspeaker). After class, we had a brief X/C session, where we talked about direct vs. indirect culture. As in, New Jersey vs. North Carolina. One says what they think (and means it), the other says something carefully designed to say what they think, but in a way that saves face for everyone. Instead of “I don’t think that will work,” an indirect way would be “Well, I think that’s a wonderful idea, John, but what do you think about ___x___.” After that, the group went to the store to get ingredients for dinner (they were making dinner) and I waited for S to give us her schedule, so we could plan the next week’s classes. Once we got our schedule of tech sessions, we planned our Russian and tutoring schedule for the week. After that, I walked back to the flat to pack. I met my host-mother walking back to the flat (she was walking back from the bus stop), and we talked for a bit. I had dinner with my host-family, and talked about PST Uni, for which I would have to leave very early the next day. I packed everything that I could, and read for a bit before going to bed.