04 October 2013

04 October 2013

Today, I got up, had a breakfast of kasha, and walked to class. There, we had about half an hour of Russian before Obukhiv 2 came over for the medical day. So, we had more than an hour of joint language. We had some time with the Ukrainian LCF, and they had some time with the Russian LCF. I learned how to say some simple phrases in Ukrainian, and they learned some basic phrases in Russian.

After that, we had a pretty large break before the doctor came for our medical day. We had some time to chat with the group and have coffee or tea. I was able to make the day of another PCT (who doesn’t have internet or an indoor toilet) by having a container of (instant) coffee. He hasn’t had any coffee since we left Chernigov, and he loves it. I introduced another PCT to a very good chocolate wafer bar, she asked what I was eating, as she had an allergy to the nuts in the chocolate. Our “personal health day” was a meeting, where one of the Peace Corp Medical Officers (PCMO) talked to us about important medical things – how the PC medical services work and how to use them, how the Office of Medical Services (OMS) is involved, and the procedures for medications and treatments in or out of country. We had a break for lunch, and then had the second half of our medical day.

The second half was the PCMO going over the contents of our medical kit and what they are for. We talked about some common conditions, and what to do if you think you might have something. There are two medical line phones, and there are some things that require immediate contact with the PCMO. All of the policies and procedures are outlined in detail in our medical book. It was very informative.

After we were done, Obukhiv 2 had to leave to catch the bus back to Petrovski, and we cooked borshch. I peeled onions and a potato. First time peeling a vegetable without peeler. We played music on various devices, and eventually settled on Imagine Dragons’ Night Visions, as everyone loved the album, as we cooked. We also decided on the movie we wanted to eat after dinner.

We invited our TCF to dinner (she’s living across the hall from V. for the training). We crowed 7 people around a table that would be a bit cramped with 4. The borshch was very good, and it was incredibly simple to make, inexpensive, and it made a lot. It will be a perfect dish to put into rotation once I’m at site.

After dinner, we cleaned up and washed the dishes, and then started our movie. We chose Casino Royale, as everyone was excited to see that one of us had it. A member of the group hadn’t seen it, and I don’t think that V. has either. We only got about halfway through (Bond and Vesper are in the car on the way to Casino Royale), before we decided that it was too late to keep watching – it was about 730, and there was more than an hour left.

As it’s a Ukrainian tradition, the three girls in the group were walked back by the two guys – in Ukraine, women aren’t supposed to be walking alone at night. My host-Mom’s apartment had hot water, so I got a shower, which was very nice. I think that the heat has been turned on, as host-Mom pointed out that the radiator in my room was warm. I think it must have been below a certain temperature for a set number of days, as that’s what our TCF and the next-door neighbor said about the heating. They both said that the heat comes on on 15 October, or earlier, if the temperature is below a certain temp (they didn’t know what temp, but I think it’s 5°C) for a set number of days (5, I think). There was a light frost recently, and I was told to wear my warmer coat -  it’s a bit overkill, but my lighter jacket is not warm enough. I was also clearly told that I’m not supposed to wear my clogs – it’s too cold. This only cements that I need to buy a pair of work shoes that are also warm.

03 October 2013

03 October 2013

Today I got up early, had a breakfast of Kasha, and walked to School #5. The cluster was observing how a Ukrainian teacher teaches an English lesson. The lesson we observed was about plans and “to be going to.” There were differences between how our TCF taught Tuesday’s lesson (is tomorrow finally Friday?), as it was much more teacher centered and more traditional in approach. The students stood at the front of the room and recited a dialogue that they learned for homework. A few shy students were allowed to stand at their seats and read the dialogue. There was a lot of reading sentences from the workbook and manual, and little to no creation of new material. There was about 5 minutes of application of the new verb phrase, before the bell rang. This lesson was a great insight into how a Ukrainian teacher runs his/her class, and it helps to highlight one of the three goals of the PC’s mission in Ukraine for TEFL – to help the teachers as well as the students and the community.

After our lesson, we had a Tech session, about Product Development/Design and Management (PDM). There are 7 seven (main) stages for a successful, fun, sustainable, and adaptable community project. Each stage has its own set of steps to encourage flow, communication, and success. We learned how to write a goal, which is incredibly general, such as, our goal is to give an exemplary liberal-arts and humanities education to our students. The objectives are the detailed part of the plan, as they are specific to the project being undertaken. Our project is likely to help create a fun way to learn grammar. When we met with the teachers and administration (was that really only last Thursday?), the vice principal for the specialized students asked if we could help them with that. We think it could make a great community project.

After our Tech session, we had a meeting with our counterparts and the principal, who seemed very pleases to have us there. We introduced ourselves in Russian, and were told that we were doing very well. We gave our counterparts and the principal a box of chocolates, and then had to figure out who was our counterpart. I have a 30-something young woman, Y, who teaches the middle school forms, specifically 7th and 8th forms. I will be observing the 3rd and 4th lessons on Tuesday, and the 5th lesson on Thursday. This schedule (T: 3,4; R: 5) should hold for the rest of PST. I’m not sure right now how it will work, but I know that I have to observe 8 more lessons (minimum, can be anyone), and I have to teach a minimum of 15 classes during PST. I get my first lesson on Thursday. I will have to write my own lesson plan, which means that I will need to talk to Y on Tuesday, to know what she had planned for Thursday.

After our meeting, we walked back to V.’s apt, where we had a 40 minute lesson (“to be late,” possessive pronouns, practice of phrases, practice of hobbies, practice of conjugation, practice of one new phrase), before DT and IK. came by. DT is the Country Director for Peace Corps Ukraine, and IK is the PST Coordinator. Impressive guests. We had an hour coffee break/meeting with them, where we discussed how our first two weeks are going (it’s only been two weeks?!). We talked to them for a while, and learned some important things, like when we are getting our PC debit card and documents, as well as getting our passport back. I got an email from a Ukrainian bank the other day, which I asked about. It was a confirmation email that they have created an account for me, but that there is no money in it, yet. We got pictures with everyone before they had to leave.

After they had to leave, we had an hour of Russian, which went very quickly. We went over our vocab and phrases. Lunch was quick, as we went over time, again. Several cluster-mates went to the store/home, so we had a quiet lunch. We all had coffee/tea when we were done eating, and were hanging out finishing it when V. came into her kitchen to teach us more words, these kitchen/cooking related. We practiced them, then went back into our classroom to practice our bazaar dialogue. We were going on a field trip to the bazaar after Russian. We divided up what we needed to get for us to cook tomorrow (we’re making Borshch), and practiced our dialogue with the item we were buying.

After a lot of practice, we walked down to the bazaar. It was mainly a collection of “babushkas,” who were selling produce that they had grown. I bought a cabbage (the small one was 1kg). They ladies seemed to enjoy listening to us fumble over the language, as it’s possible that they’ve never spoken to an American before, much less an American who is making a point to conduct the sale in Russian. After we bought what produce we could from the babushkas, we went into the supermarket. I put the cabbage (in my little red pocket bag) in my purse, so I could go in. We got the rest of the ingredients, some things for lunch tomorrow, and went back to V.’s apt, where we put the food in the fridge, checked our schedules, and left.

I walked back to host-Mom’s apt, where the younger grandchild was taking a nap. I got to work on my homework. First, I finished last nights (it took about an hour, so I’m glad I didn’t so it then), wrote out another case’s endings, started tonight’s homework, and was able to get the recipe for borshch from my host-Mom. In Russian, but it was homework to get it in Russian. Dinner was borshch from yesterday (the one without beets), which I think is my favorite variant so far. I finished tonight’s homework, and then spent some time online. Tomorrow, my cluster has a joint lesson – Obukhiv 2 is coming in for the medical day, so we’re going to teach each other Russian/Ukrainian. After our medical day, my cluster and our LCF are going to cook our borshch, and then maybe watch a movie.

02 October 2013

02 October 2013

Yesterday, I got up, had a breakfast of Kasha, and went to Russian class. The cluster played a quick-fire game, went over hours and minutes in Russian, and practiced our new vocab. Then, we broke into teams for Pictionary, before learning a new case.

I’ve learned several cases, can use them properly, but I’m not quite sure what a case is. We’ve been using the Nomative (no changes) and Accusative, which has only one major change. Now, we learned the Genative, which is complicated… It’s used with “no” or “not” (same word – “Nyet”), after a quantity (a lot, a few, etc), after without (I take my coffee without milk), after all cardinal numbers (except 1), and after “how many/much?” We took turns practicing this, before taking a break.

After our break, we went into learned the words from the section of our manual about being at a bazaar. We learned how to ask if a product is fresh, how much does it cost, I would like ___x___ amount, it’s cheap/expensive, among others. We were also given a few phrases that would help us if we wanted to barter the price. I can also now say the Russian for “thank you, thank you very much.” We were going to head to the bazaar today, but none of us felt very comfortable with our Russian, so we rescheduled it for today. After going over our dialogue (in rotating pairs), we broke for lunch.

I had a bit of a rushed lunch, as the first break went over (so our second 2 hours of Russian started late and ran over) and I had tutoring in the hour between lunch and our Tech session. After lunch, V. and I worked on my pronunciation (going over various things that I will have to be able to say by the end of training, if not much sooner), and worked on the genetive case (which so far makes the most logical sense in how/what is changed). We also practiced conjugation. We had to cut our tutoring a bit short, as the cluster had a Tech session.

The Tech session was on running an English club and/or other electives. As PCTs and PCVs, we are required to run an English club, both at our internship school and our site school. We went over the challenges and opportunities effecting our decision to run a club or two or three. We discussed the what? why? who? how? and where? of running a club. We also thought out some ideas for what to do at an English club meeting. Our meeting went very fast, and soon we were discussing tomorrow (today), and what we were doing. We would be observing a Ukrainian teacher’s lesson, then having another Tech session, and then meeting our counterparts. We decided to buy a box of chocolates for our counterparts to share. We learned who was teaching a tech session next week (another PCT and me), and what we had to do next week. We will be teaching a lesson (for real; can be co-taught) next week!

After Tech session, the group went to the store, where we got the box of chocolates for our counterparts, some chocolates for our TCF and LCF, and what we wanted for the week/next day. I got some little notebooks, where I can keep my TELF notes, and my Russian homework, to stay more organized. I got more than I need at the moment, as I’ll always use them later (for lesson plans, on site, recipes, etc).

Host-Mom wasn’t there when I got back, so I started on my homework. First, I transferred my TEFL notes (the most important ones) to my new TEFL notebook, where I will also keep my PST lesson plans. Then, I got my TELF assignments as up-to-date as I could. The next-door neighbor came over to let me know that my host-Mom wouldn’t be back for over and hour, and not to wait dinner. I checked what was for dinner (borshch sans beets), and kept working on my homework.

I transferred important information to my new homework notebook, which now About me, about my family, pronouns in important cases, when to use those cases, a basic conjugation table, a few important verbs in full conjugated glory, tables with important case endings, verbs that require a noun in that case, and lots of homework. I took a break from doing homework, and started heating borshch and some water for coffee. I lit both burners on the first try. Struck the first match perfectly; had to try a few times on the second. I had just served myself when host-Mom and host-sister got back. They had been in Kyiv (host-sister goes to University there), so host-Mom could get a new winter coat.

After dinner, I worked on my pronunciation, going over the words we had learned, as well as important phrases, with my host-sister. After more than 30 minutes (likely closer to an hour), she had to go work on her own homework, so I got to work on my written homework. When I next looked up, it was well over two hours later, and close to 1030. I decided that there was no way I could do the next 2 exercises (good idea – they took me about an hour today) before falling asleep, so I stopped my homework, and got ready for bed. I spent sometime online, chatted with my Dad, and went to bed.

01 October 2013

01 October 2013

Today, I go up, got dressed, had a breakfast of Kasha and coffee, and walked to School #5 for the first class observation. It was a “demo” put on by my TCF, which meant that she taught a regular English class’ regular lesson. The unit was Town and Country Environment, and today’s lesson was on Ukraine. The class went over what they’d learned last week, learned new words, practiced their new words, and applied their new words. Observing this class was fascinating. It also made me feel much more prepared to spend the next two years teaching.

After our observation, we had out tech session, which was on 4MAT lesson planning. Ukraine has a law that all teachers must have proof that they have a lesson plan – if asked by an administrator, they have to show the lesson plan. Also, Ukraine has a national curriculum, which no derivation allowed. This means that every lesson has to be carefully planned in advance.

The 4MAT plan makes this a bit easier. It has a stated objective, tools and resources used to meet that objective, and the main steps set out. Those steps are Motivation (warm-up), Presentation, Practice, Application, and Summing-up (wrap-up/home work assignment). To me, a giant nerd, those 5 steps make me think of an original series Star Trek episode: the teaser to remind you that you’re watching Star Trek, the problem for the episode, the characters facing the problem, the characters solving the problem, and the finale (usually a joke at Spock’s expense). This also makes me more confident, as lesson planning was always one of those mythical things that only the great could do well. There are many steps to successfully writing a lesson plan, but they all revolve around the objective for the lesson – what the students should be able to do at the end of the lesson. Be it balance a chemical equation, explain the use of light vs. dark imagery in The Count of Monte Cristo, or talk about their family in a new language, there is something that they should be able to do. The lesson plan itself should be very specific – how you plan to present the new topic, how you plan to let the students practice it both controlled and individually, and how you plan to wrap up the lesson. We also have to always have a reserve lesson, in case we finish our main activities too fast.

After our Tech session, we walked back to V.’s where we had a break before 2 hours of Russian. We learned some new vocab for items in the kitchen, and repeated them. We then practiced our tongue-twisters, before moving on to what we like to do in our spare time. We wrote out an “internet profile” of what we can say in Russian, to remind ourselves of how far we’ve gotten in this short time.

We then went over the sentences we wrote for homework. Apparently, we need to write our sentences in English, as someone else then translates (and conjugates) them on the fly the next day. We took turns saying hobby sentences and translating them. We are trying to work up to asking questions set in the past tense, like “with whom were you running in the park yesterday morning?” which, of course, a friend would have to translate the next day! Some one asking a similar question led to us going over the past tense for all Russian verbs. ALL. Tout. All verbs conjugate to the past the same way, according to the number and gender of the pronoun they are referring to. It makes finding a stem and then the infinitive easier than in French, and substantially easier than in English. There is no helping verb, as far as I can tell, so all verbs truly conjugate the same way!

After our crash course on past tense (we learn more later), we went on to habitual actions – what do you usually do in the morning/during the day/at night in Obukhiv? There are 3 tenses in Russian, only 3, so habitual action is present tense. We asked and answered these questions as a group. We were told to ask our host families these questions as part of our homework, as a survey, to practice our listening, speaking, and writing in Russian. We then broke for lunch.

After lunch, we went right back into food. Today, we learns lots of fruits, sweets, and milk products. We practiced these new words with the accusative case, which means that only the feminine words change. This would be used if I were to say that I like to eat Kasha for breakfast, as Kasha is feminine, and I’m using the accusative case (I like ___what___ for breakfast). We practiced a new question to help us with this case – what do you like to eat/drink for breakfast/lunch/dinner? We had to answer in the accusative, with the nouns changed to reflect it. We practiced this as a group, in rotating pairs. After that, we got our homework (lots of reading), and had a quick break before a short Safety and Security meeting.

Once a week, we have to have a briefing, to make sure that we, as PCTs and PCVs, know what the PC wants us to know about safety and security. There are ways that we can make ourselves safer – integration is key – and things that we need to be aware of that we might not have any idea about. Such as the law that says that all people in Ukraine have to carry their documents on them, so that if stopped by the police, they have their identification. We then went over common fines, and made sure that we know that we do not have diplomatic immunity, and, as such, all wrong doings fall under the jurisdiction and laws of Ukraine. We learned some key numbers that we need to have in our phone, who we need to call if something happens (and in what order – the head of PC safety and security is our first call, before the local police), and what we need to carry with us each time we leave our apartment/house.

That was the end of our lesson for today, so I walked back to my host-mom’s apartment, and started on my homework. We had an early dinner (soup, part of an open-faced sandwich, a cold salad, and coffee), and I was able to ask her the questions. It’s cold in the apartment (heat won’t come on for at least another week), so host-Mom turned the oven on and left it open to heat the apartment. It worked – any room with an open door was warmer. My door gets closed all the time, so my room was still a bit chilly. While I was working on my homework, the brother of my host-mother’s late husband came over, to hang out with the family (his sister-in-law, nephew, and grand-niece). Host-Mom’s son brought salted fish, which I wasn’t able to have (PC regs), so host-Mom and uncle were joking about that. The uncle brought a bottle of Ukranian beer, which he asked if I could have any of, as host-Mom had just told him that I couldn’t eat fish or mushrooms. He asked me “nyet reebah?” (“no fish”) as though he hadn’t heard of that reg before, and then “peeva?” (beer). I said a little (“shoot-shoot”), so he poured me a small glass of a pilsner. The “bottle” of beer was more than a litre, and that seems the standard size for beer bottles. Also, Ukrainian beer has a reputation for being very strong (high ABV). Basically, don’t try to drink the whole bottle by yourself if you don’t want to be completely drunk. I finished my reading homework, and did some of the vocab exercises in the Russian manual, before checking my email, and hanging out on line.

30 September 2013

30 September 2013

Today, I got up, got dressed, had a breakfast of kasha, and walked to Russian class. Today was a short day, as it was only 4 hours of Russian. I learned some new phrases, and we practiced our Russian. We practiced our tongue twisters, and then worked on how to say “with” someone. We then did an exercise where one of us would read a phrase, question, or word in Russian (or English) and then translate it. The next person had to say (in Russian), “yes, I agree with ______.” It got extremely frustrating for me, as I never got the ones I knew, only the ones I couldn’t remember. We spent about an hour on this game, before having a break.

V. had been to Chernigov over the weekend, so she was able to change some money. Not all of it, but some of it. Another PCT and I doled it up. V told us that banks in Kiev would change our money, but they would charge us a fee to do so. After our break, we went straight into food. We learned many new words, which my host-Mom has been trying to teach me for a week. We went over our new vocabulary, and we then tried to sort the new words into their number and gender – masculine, feminine, neuter, or plural. We got most of them right. We also learned how to say “I like ____,” and “how much is _____?” Both are important phrases, one for talking to our host-family, and one for buying things at a bazaar.

The afternoon was three one-hour tutoring sessions, back-to-back, but I didn’t have one today, so I got to go home after lunch. Another volunteer and I talked during lunch, about our life so far in Ukraine.

After eating, I walked back to my host-Mom’s apartment. After finishing my written homework, I helped her clean the apartment, and them hung out in my room for a bit. Host-Mom made vareniki, but I wasn’t able to help her. She made cabbage-stuffed ones, which were really good. She also made soup. Host-Sister came back from Kiev, and we had soup and vareniki for dinner. After dinner, we had coffee and dessert. I went back over all my new vocab, and hung-out for a bit. Host-Mom, host-sister, and I had tea and more dessert.

The apartment hasn’t had hot water since a week ago Monday. They were supposed to have it back on Saturday, but no worries. It came back today, in the evening. First, barely lukewarm. Then, warmish, but an icky brown color. Finally, warm and clear. I was able to get a shower, and the water was getting warmer every minute of the shower. Host-Mom has been cooking mushrooms since our tea and dessert. PC regs say I can’t eat them, but they do smell very good.

28 and 29 September 2013

28 and 29 September 2013

Yesterday, I got up early, as I needed to take an early bus to Petrovski, the neighboring village where Obukhiv 2 is based. I had a breakfast of Kasha, and left for the bust stop. My cluster and I took bus #4. A current PCV (who was in Obukhiv 1 exactly a year ago, his host family is one of my cluster-mate’s host family) was in town for a few days.

At Obukhiv School number 4, Petrovski, we met Obukhiv 2, and went into the English classroom. There, we had our Tech session, where we went over some success stories and looked for why they were successful. We noticed a trend: in all the stories, the PCV worked closely with the local community to promote their project. After that, we learned about the Peace Corps Niche, which is the overlap of the host country’s national resources and priorities, our site’s community resources and assets, and our own skills and experiences. It’s a small niche, but it works.

Then, we learned about PACA: Participatory Analysis for Community Action. PACA are a set of tools that will help us as teachers, as community members, as Americans in Ukraine, as, well, everything. The four PACA tools that we went over were Needs Assessment and Priority Ranking, Community Mapping, Daily Activity Schedule, and Seasonal Calendar. We read over them, and then explained why they were valuable and how to apply them.

We went over the challenges of being a TEFL in Ukraine, as well as the opportunities. While we came up with more challenges, the opportunities were more important (IMHO). The challenges were things like lack of resources, lack of interest, cultural differences, and trying to do too much as PCVs, and the opportunities were that we can build community capacity, create a spirit of volunteerism, and showing that we are interested in learning and teaching, which in return promotes an interest in learning. We also went over strategies to help us get over some of our challenges. We should work closely with our counterpart and the local hierarchy, promote effective communication, use our tools, and remember that we can’t do everything at once, so we really shouldn’t try. We then gave our week debrief.

Petrovski is a small, cute, agricultural community, with winding roads and farms. One of the PCTs has an outdoor toilet and no internet, and another’s host family has apple and pear trees and a cow. Their school has 3 English teachers, one of whom is also the principal. In comparison, all of Obukhiv 1 have indoor plumbing and internet, and our school has 20 English teachers.

The PCV who is in Group 44 (September 2012, TEFL) spoke for a few minutes. He explained that he runs three clubs – English, Spanish, and adult English. He told us that our needs assessment would help us with our community project – the administration at his school asked him to do a Spanish club, as he majored in Spanish.

He told us that the PC language teaching is the best – you learn enough to survive at your site. Also said that the PC pays for a language tutor, which he highly recommends. He reminded us that the feeling of being overwhelmed is normal, and that the cluster needs to support its members. 

He spoke about English club, and how he does what the students want. He also uses the same topics in his English classes, and he can usually stretch out the material for at least 2 classes, if not three or four. He suggested that we help other PCVs with summer camps, as it gets us away from our site, but doesn’t use any of our vacation days.

He was also in the Russian group, and has experienced very little problems as a result. Some people have asked him why he’s speaking Russian, but he did say that most people know that we are Americans, and therefore won’t judge us too harshly for speaking Russian.

After that, we had a brief break, followed by our X/C session. As we were in Petrovski, Obukhiv 2’s LCF, R., led this lesson. We looked at things that define culture, and then compared the US to Ukraine. The two countries are mostly opposites, which can make for misunderstandings, and difficulty integrating. We need to remember TSCOUT: to use our Tools, to Suspend judgment, to Collect data, to Organize information, to Utilize our resources, and to Test our results. This will help us navigate and integrate into Ukraine.

After that, Obukhiv 1 took Bus 4 back. My host-sister and I had lunch – soup! She was making a salad

for dinner, which is very interesting, yet very good. It is a cold salad, and it has sea legs, cucumber, cooked rice, canned corn, something else, and mayonnaise. I had a relatively lazy afternoon, which was nice. Host-Mom was out most of the day picking mushrooms – she returned with enough to fill the bathtub as she washed them! Host-sister went to a concert in Kiev, and returned early this morning. Host-Mom and I had dinner (more soup, mashed potatoes, and sausage), and she started cleaning and processing the mushrooms. She was still processing them when I went to bed.

This morning I was able to sleep in until close to 1030. Won’t be able to do that until next Sunday… I got up and dressed and went into the amazing smelling kitchen. Breakfast today was a little.. unusual, but it was very good. Host-Mom told me to wait a few minutes, as she finished cooking some mushrooms, and then sliced up 3 small potatoes and fried them. That was about half of breakfast. She then gave me 2 stuffed peppers. The peppers came from her garden, and were stuffed with rice and beef, with a cheese sauce. They were quite lovely. I also had coffee. A bit after breakfast, host-Mom left to go somewhere, and I was able to finish some TCF assignments, mainly copy a community map into my TEFL workbook. I also read a few chapters in our main textbook, More Than a Native Speaker, which is about how we are wanted to be more than just a native speaker – we are wanted to teach and explain our culture.

Host-sister got up, and I had coffee with her as she had breakfast. She started working on translation homework, and I started reading over this weeks vocabulary for LCF class. The next-door neighbor came over, and we had tea. After that, I was able to video chat with my parents, which was awesome. I was also able to help Dad find the apartment complex, the school, and the store. After that, host-sister and I went to the grocery store, where I bought a weeks worth of lunches. When we got back to the apartment, host-sister went back out, and I started a budget, to help me figure out my PC allowance. When host-sister came back, we had dinner – more of those awesome stuffed peppers and cold salad. We had tea and chatted over dessert, which was a Turkish dessert called Halva. It’s a mixture of sunflower paste and other mixed nuts. It’s very good. Host-Mom came home, and started getting ready for tomorrow. I was able to finish my chat with my parents, and iron some clothes for next week.

I had a very nice, relaxing couple of days, which is very important, as I have a busy week scheduled.

27 September 2013

27 September 2013

Today I got up and had a breakfast of Kasha. Host-Mom and I left at about the same time – her to her job, and me to Russian. There, we learned another tongue-twister (about Count Pato playing the lottery), and practiced it for a long time. After that, we went on to reading Cyrillic cursive. It is required by law that all Ukrainian students write in cursive, not block. We had to try to say several words written in cursive. After fumbling over the letters, we went on to safety phrases. There are only a few for now, but they are important ones. Stop it! Who’s there? I’m calling the police. I won’t let you in. We practiced them a bit, and then drew most of our Community Map.

Earlier in the week, we had to go out and find important parts of our community. We marked their locations, and reported back to the class. We combined each other’s maps and created our map. We were only to finish about half of the map, as we planned extensively first. We can finish it on Monday. After that, we read and answered questions that we had learned previously. We had to conjugate some words on the fly while speaking. We took a quick break.

All of us had asked V. if she could exchange some money for us. Note – if you ever want to exchange money, you need Ukrainian documents, and the bills have to be perfect and new. V. exchanged some of it, and we split it up among us. V is going back to Chernigov this weekend, and thinks she will be able to exchange the rest, so myself and another bowed out of “now,” which meant that we didn’t have to try to split money 5 ways, with about a third of it still in USD! Earlier in the week, I’d bought a strawberry flavored milk product that I didn’t know what it was. I tried it during the break. Turned out it was drinkable yogurt! Think Yoplait, only thinner, stronger flavor, less sweet, and fresher-tasting. It was awesome!

After our break, we had a listening exercise, where he had to pick out the important information about PCV John and his families, both American and Ukrainian. We listened to it several times, filling in information. After listening to the script one last time, we answered questions about the text, and said what information was given in the script, but not questioned.

After our listening exercise, we learned the question words. Now we can asked qestions including who, what, when, where, why, and how. We also learned how to say “o’clock” which is important, as we need to talk to our families about when we want breakfast and dinner. We practiced asking and answering questions about hobbies, conjugating the verbs for the tenses. After that, we had lunch, wrote down our schedule for next week, and went across the hall to S.’s apt and our Tech Session.

The first thing we did was to go over the various popular methods of teaching a language: Grammar translation, Audio-Lingual, Direct, Total physical response, and the new Communicative Approach (CA). All of the various methods have their advantages, and their disadvantages. The CA is what PC Ukraine uses to teach English. It is a method that focuses on communication above and beyond all else, as well as being a student-centered approach to learning a language. Like all things, it has its disadvantages, but they are far fewer than other methods. The CA was developed specifically to help teach communication between two languages, and is a blending of the advantages of many other styles: vocab taught by translation, pronunciation taught by repetition, target language spoken exclusive of vocab, and miming is used to teach simple words. Group work and creativity are stressed.

After that, we went over what we are going to do tomorrow, and how we are going to go about doing them. Then, we went over our Tech Session schedule for the upcoming week, and decided who was going to take the community map with them, so we could bring it with us to Obukhiv 2. We also got a thumb drive’s worth of manuals to use.

After class, I went back to my host-Mom’s apartment, where I did most of my homework for the weekend. Still have to visit the apartment of another PCT. I also filled in the answers in my PC UA PTS TEFL manual, as I had gotten the answers but not collated them before. I finished my community map for my Emergency locator form (ELF), and took a picture of if to upload with my ELF. I also edited, processed, and uploaded the pictures I took at the hotel in Chernigov on day one. I edited a blog post, and added a picture from day one to the post.

I spent some time online, waiting for my host-Mom to come home. The granddaughter (who will now be called my host-sister for clarity’s sake) was here from Kyiv, but she had to go to something downtown. Both host-Mom and host-sister were home at around the same time, about 8pm. Host-Mom had bags of vegetables picked from her garden. As soon as host-sister got back, host-Mom served us soup for dinner, berating me soundly in Russian for not eating earlier in the evening. After dinner, I had a bucket bath. It was colder than earlier in the week, as the apartment building doesn’t have heat yet. Still, a chilly air bucket bath is better than no shower. Host-Sister needed to do some translations for homework, so she used the computer in my room.

26 September 2013

26 September 2013

Today I had to get up even earlier than usual, as we had a meeting with at the local school at 8am. We all had to be dressed very professionally, as teachers are looked at as authority figures and need to dress as such. No overalls accepted. I had a breakfast of what I think was Kasha made with rice instead of oats. It was very good. Host-Mom left shortly before I did, as she was going to work. I added some finishing touches, and walked briskly to the meeting spot – just outside the TCF’s apartment. From there, we walked to the school. It’s a 5-10 minute walk.

There, we were met by 2 students, who took us on a tour of their school. We got to go into some of the classrooms, and even talked to the students of one English class. After our tour, we got to meet with some of the administration and some English teachers. We learned a lot about the education culture and system in Obukhiv. The teachers want us to set up an English club for their students, and want us to help them find/make/get some materials to teach English grammar. We learned about the requirements for students, teachers, parents, about how much the school costs, what types of schools and classes there are in Obukhiv, what types of career pathways there are at the various schools, and the tests needed to get into University.

We learned that the culture of education is very different in Ukraine. The grading scale means that a student can’t fail and be held back, because building blocks are what matters. There are no final exams every year. The students have to clean their classrooms, and make posters for the school. 90% of all students have had the same classmates their entire educational career. There is a very good vocational program, where a student who doesn’t want to go to University can start earlier than in the US, as they finish secondary school and have career training when they graduate. We learned that teachers are held responsible for what happens to students when they are at school – if a teacher lets a student out of class, and the student gets hurt, the teacher is responsible. Teachers have many responsibilities, more so than it seems in the US. There is a much more hierarchical structure to doing anything, even a field trip to the local museums. There are no set number of lessons a week for teachers. The norm is 18, but that number can go way up.

There are private schools in Ukraine, but they aren’t private in the way that I think of private – there isn’t really a tuition cost, but the books and resources will be more expensive. All schools are state run. Secondary education is compulsory, but where you take it is up to you – regular school, specialized school (basically a magnet school), or vocational school.

As secondary education PCVs, we will have 5th through 11th form (5th grade through 11th), with option of teaching some primary school. As said earlier, we will need to look very professional to be treated as teachers by our students. Education is a very female dominated section, so there are very few male teachers. Teachers aren’t well paid; they get about $150 USD a month.

After our meeting, debrief, and technical session, we walked back to V.’s, where we had a very short break, and then an hour of Russian. We went over today, tomorrow, and yesterday, and some minor conjugations for past tense. We also learned how to say “with so-and-so.” After that, we practiced trilling our Cyrillic “R”s. V. said that I was the best of the group, but I know I have a lot of room to improve. We then learned some more agreements and disagreements, as well as polite phrases to say in Russian.

We had a 40minute break for lunch. The whole group was hungry, as our school and technical sessions had gone over, and we were almost an hour late for lunch. During lunch, we talked about what we had learned, what happened at our host-families this week, and practiced trilling those Rs.

 After lunch, we went over our numbers, and practiced saying how old people were. We went over the Datum and nomative cases, which use different pronouns, which are different from possessive pronouns. We presented the paragraph we wrote about our American families, and were asked questions about each other’s families. After that, we started on conjugations. There two normal conjugations, each with two subsets, which depends on the infinitive, and the verb stem. There are exceptions to some of the rules, and we need to memorize some of the most common irregular verbs. We then wrote down some of them, and learned a few more rules. Class was over.

I had tutoring, but I was the second one, so I staying V.’s kitchen and was able to do not quite half of my homework. I wrote almost a full page of short and simple sentences about a family tree V. gave me. Each PCT has a different one. I also got about half of my hobby verbs conjugated. Most of them follow the patterns, which makes them easy to conjugate.

During my tutoring, V. taught me how to ask to be taught to hand wash some clothes, and to cook. We also went over some cultural things, and then worked on my pronunciation. We went over a list of Russian/Ukrainian/English cognates for jobs and hobbies. Then we worked on the hobbies themselves, and finally I had to conjugate the verbs. I’m not good at conjugating without writing, so it took me a bit. Some of the words were long and complicated in their infinitive, and (of course) those were the ones that had an odd root stem and conjugation. However, the verbs that I had already conjugated and written down, I did a good job on.

After tutoring, I walked back to the apartment, and was practically handed borsch. I was able to change into less formal clothes and get out the rest of my homework while the Ukrainian borsch heated. I finished my homework, and spent some time online, before I put in the rest of the information on a very complicated PC locator form. They want exact geographic coordinates, as well as very good directions. I drew my part of a community map that my cluster will be drawing tomorrow as a class. We all had to find something in our community, and draw it on the map. As well as where we live, and how to get to V.’s apartment from there.

25 September 2013

25 September 2013

I woke up this morning warm, as I put an extra layer on before bed. Breakfast was Kasha, which host-Mom made and had left on the stove for me. She left around the time I got up. I had a very relaxed breakfast, and left with plenty of time to get to class. I wore my sneakers, which don’t look very professional, but everyone takes their shoes off at V.’s apartment, so it isn’t as bad an idea as in the US – wearing brown Gor-tex cross-trainers with black dress pants… We all got to class, where we went back over all the phrases we learned in the last few days. Then we were put into groups, where we made up a dialogue using the phrases we’d learned in the last few days. Then, V. had us take turns using our phrases with everyone. We learned a new one, “teaching English in Ukraine,” as we aren’t supposed to answer “PCV” to “what’s your profession?” We also learned “how many languages do you speak?” and how to say that we are learning Russian.

After we presented our “families,” we had a break for a snack. After that, we got to present our homework, our host family, to the cluster. We then took turns making up names and professions for pictures of family vocab, and names and relations for job vocab. After we did that, we paired up, got a picture of a family, and had to describe the people in it.  We needed names, relations, and jobs. After that, we learned some hobbies, and we practiced them by saying that we liked or didn’t like them. We were given homework, and then we broke for lunch. After lunch, there were three individual tutoring hours, so I was done. One PCT and I went to the supermarket while the other 3 had lunch. I bought lunches for the rest of the week, and returned to V.’s to put them in her fridge. We’re required to supply our own lunch, and V had allocated us some space for us to keep it in her kitchen. I had a quick lunch and returned to my host-Mom’s apartment.

There, I did most of my homework, and updated some things. Host-Mom’s son came over for about 30 seconds to drop off a packet of milk. Much later, host-Mom came home, and started heating dinner. We had Ukrainian Borsch, which differs from its Russian counterpart as it has chicken, but no beans. After dinner, host-Mom made the same cheese, sour cream, and raspberry jam dessert, which we shared with tea, and then went to see her son and grandson. She brought some of the dessert with her. She was back shortly, and I asked her my questions, to finish my homework. She looked over what I’d written, and seemed to like it. When her granddaughter called, she told her to tell me that she was impressed that I could write a paragraph in Russian, as I had had my first Russian lesson less than a week ago. It was a very simple paragraph, but a paragraph nonetheless. Host-Mom and I had some tea, and I discovered what appeared to be a leaking pipe. Host-Mom called her son, who came over and looked at it. They ventured outside to check it out, and it was discovered to be condensation. We finished our tea, and I wore yet another layer to bed, to make sure I would be warm when I woke up.

24 September 2013

24 September 2013

My day started with a nice breakfast of Kasha, and walked to class. The whole link group had a meeting with the Administration, so my cluster met with our TCF and took the bus downtown. I brought lunch me and stuck it in V.’s fridge before we left. I wore my nicest shoes with my skirt, and rubbed a blister before I was halfway to class.

My cluster got to the center, met up with the other cluster, went over our Russian/Ukrainian greetings, and the questions we wanted to ask at the meeting. We were introduced to the mayor’s assistant, the head of Obukhiv’s education department, and the head of safety and security department in the militia. We learned the history of the town, and a lot about the schools. We learned how many schools there are, and that both Ukraine and Obukhiv are committed to educating their students. All schools have a specialty, regular classes, and classes that students can ask to take, but that cost money. State-run schools are free. There are centers that specialize in helping children, with places to play and rooms to study in the same convenient building.

We learned that Obukhiv wants us to help them improve the confidence that their students and educators have with the English language. Speaking in a foreign language is hard, especially to a native speaker.

We were very happy to hear about the level of importance placed on the education system by the Ukrainian government, and how committed Obukhiv is to us. The mayor’s assistant (back when he had more free time) used to take groups of volunteers on trips around the city, building bridges and helping the PCVs with their language and cultural learning.

After the meeting, we talked about when we were going to our school meeting, and where we would meet. We’re meeting S. at her apartment, as it’s a less than 10 minute walk to the school where we will be going, learning, and teaching. We caught the bus back to V.’s apartment, where we had lunch.

After lunch, we practiced my phonetics, and then learned how to expresses disbelief in something. We practiced with our original dialogue (hi, I’m American, NC, WS. You?), adding in things like, “I can’t believe that! Me too.” We also learned how to agree and disagree, and how to say goodbye multiple ways. We practiced our dialogues again, this time adding in “good-bye” at the end.

After that, we learned some jobs, and had to use the jobs in simple sentences, like “this is Bob. He’s a teacher.” We practiced them in pairs, before moving on to family. We learned the important words for how to explain our family to someone else. We also learned how to ask what someone does, and how old they are. We were given homework of asking our host-family questions about themselves, specifically about their family and their ages.

After that, we had to work on the Emergency Locator Form, which is due at some point this week. V. helped us fill out what she knew (the address of our host-family, phone numbers of host-family, contacts names and numbers), and told us that we need to fill it out. There is also a section where we need to draw the town, so that someone who’s never been to Obukhiv can find our apartment, if they can’t call someone. As our community mapping is very similar (and we need to know where other volunteers live), we are planning on working on that later in the week.

The group had been planning to do some shopping before going home, but we stayed late working on the forms. It was almost dark, so we decided to push that off until tomorrow, as we aren’t supposed to be walking alone after dark (especially not use women).

I walked back to host-Mom’s apartment. She was already home, and worried about me. Almost immediately, we had dinner (more soup), and then I did my homework. I spent a lot of time going over the Hobbies section of out language manual. I was able to ask host-Mom about her family, and also her age. I wrote out the names, ages, and professions of her family. We had more a late tea while I was working on my homework, and then dessert.

After a bit, host-Mom told me that she could boil some water if I wanted a shower. They are working on something, so the building doesn’t have hot water this week. I got a bucket shower, with more than enough hot water, which helped to warm me up. There isn’t heat in the building until sometime next month, so it’s a bit chilly. I have woken up cold every morning this week, so I put on an extra layer to sleep in, and woke up warm today.