11 October 2013

11 October 2013

Today, I got up, got dressed, and had a breakfast of Kasha before walking to my Russian class. Today, we went over the case used when possession is indicated – the something of someone – which is genitive. We also got some new tongue twisters. V said that I had a very good Russian pronunciation when I said them. I can now say that “I miss my family” in Russian, which is a case and a few words from “I’m bored.” We also learned that to make most verbs into their participle, all we need to do is take off the infinitive and add the “ya” sounds.

After that, we went over ordinal numbers, which change depending on the gender of the noun that is being described. Luckily, there is only one irregular – and it only changes for one gender. We then asked and answered questions about dates to practice them: what day is today? tomorrow? yesterday? We then went over our daily routine.

We played a game yesterday that plays with our short term memory, as we have to say what the people before us said. V starts with “First, I wake up,” and we have to keep the day going. The next person says “first, I wake up,” and gives us the next thing, which the rest of the group builds on. I keep being the last one in the circle, which means I say 5 things before adding my new one. Then, we do it again. We usually end the cycle with 11 or 12 things. In order to give hints as to what was said, we have created expansive hand gestures to mime the actions. Personally, they distract me, as I normally talk with my hands, so making gestures specific to the subject is a bit distracting. It’s good speaking and conjugating practice, though.

After that, we had a brief break, so we were able to have a small snack. After our break, we walked across the hall to S.’s flat, where we had an a Community project check in. We have decided to do a project with the end result of creating materials that make learning grammar fun. The vice-principal specifically said that they were looking for cartoons, so we are thinking about creating an easy-to-use video playlist (YouTube is our friend), as well as some of our own dialogues, worksheets, activities, comic strips, all in a lesson plan manual. Now, we have to create an action plan, where we divvy up what we need to do in the next few weeks.

We then had our week debrief, where we went over our thoughts about the classes that we taught, and if we had any suggestions for our cluster-mates about their next class. We also went over what we have to do starting next week, starting with English club. Many of the older forms weren’t present for Wednesday’s meeting, so we’re rescheduling for Mondays, and expecting a 60-some person turnout. We then went over our Tech schedule for the upcoming week, and discussed that we need to start teaching more classes, and we can observe pretty much any class. We then broke for lunch and more Russian.

After lunch, we went back to Russian, where we got some of our home task for the weekend – self-assessment form, class assessment forms, and an open-book test. Then, we went over our homework. We were supposed to memorize what we’d written as for our daily routine, but no one did. Personally, I consider it a small victory if I can remember the correct conjugation.

While going over our home tasks, we learned that Russian has two aspects. An aspect in this case is a verb that is only used in the perfect or the imperfect. If you want to say that you bought some bread, it’s a different verb than if you want to buy some bread. We had written sentences that used “on this day of the week, I will do/do/did blank.” We read our sentences in English, and then had a cluster-mate translate them. For home task, we had been asked to ask our host family their favourite day of the week, as well as their birthday. We then presented our findings with “I cooked with my host mom and I learned that… her favourite day of the week is Friday, because she doesn’t have to work on Saturday.” Yes, Saturday is in a different case, and therefore spelled differently… We also presented when they were born.

After that, we went over the seasons, and learned how they change when you say “in July,” for example. We then said what our favourite season is, and answered what we liked about another season. We then formed sentences with the very simple future – I will be doing blank next week/next month/in a year/in two years. To help with that, we read a dialogue and then made up our own, where we had to adjust the dialogue to match what we were saying (subject, location, time, date). My brain decided to stop recognizing written Russian for a few minutes, so I mispronounced the easy words. And correctly pronounced the 5 syllable word, which didn’t-follow-conventions. We learned a few new polite phrases (“have fun” and “I wish you success at work”) as well as learning that in spoken Russian, the “I” form is understood when the verb is conjugated. And that “I will go to” is a different verb than the ones that we have already learned for “to go.” After that, we quickly talked about the weather. Which means that I can now make elevator small talk I Russian… It was pushing time to go, so we only covered the really important ones – sunny, hot, cold, snow, rain, and wind. The words are in our manual. We were then assigned more home task, some of which is to look over Unit 4, which is in the next manual. So, each manual only takes us 3 weeks to cover. They’re 200+ pages…

After that, we had a few minute break, before having our safety and security session, which was on how to avoid becoming a victim of petty crime. We learned things like blend in, don’t put your wallet in your backpack or back pocket, avoid being distracted, and be on the look out for scams. We were told to make sure that we had the numbers for cab companies, as it is much better to pay the fare than it is to walk alone (or even in groups) after night fall in big cities.

We then covered drinking – there is a different drinking culture here. Most people don’t go to pubs or bars, instead they drink at home. Women usually drink wine, which is good, as there is a lot of homemade vodka available on the market. Some of which, apparently, lives up to its reputation as paint stripper. There are also culturally acceptable ways to turn down more drinks, which include everything from nursing a drink all night to turning the offer around, and suggesting that the person asking you to take the shot take the shot.

After that, we had our cross-cultural session, where we talked about culture shock. There are phases of culture shock, as with every sort of transition. If you are aware of the stages of transition, as well as the symptoms of the stages of transition, you will have a much easier time adapting and integrating. We discussed strategies for dealing with culture shock. We discussed some moments that we have had of culture shock, and how we could begin to adapt. We then went over our schedule for the upcoming week. We’re going to Kyiv this week, as well as going to Petrovski for a PC Seminar.

After that, we helped V clean her flat – swept the floors and cleaned the kitchen – before heading back. One of my cluster-mates five year old host-sister contracted chicken pox, so she’s a little worried about how easy she will be to be around for the next few days. We all said that she could come and meet our host-families if she needed a break.

After that, I walked back, changed into more comfortable clothes, had dinner (borshch), and started in on my home task. I did a fair amount of it; I wrote up my observation report, my post-teaching report, filled in the correct forms in our TEFL manual, and started on my Russian. I worked for 27 songs, on my playlist, which is several hours, on translation and answering questions about a short text. I have one more left to do. I also spent some time looking at the “teach yourself to write in cursive in Russian” manual. I’m going to have to learn how to read Russian cursive, as that is what is taught in schools, and what my students are likely to be reading.

After that, I had tea with my host family, and watched a bit of a TV show: something about dancing. I saw two contestants, one who moved on to the next round, and one who was still facing elimination. It made about as much sense in Russian as the same show would have in English, but it was entertaining.

After tea, I was able to spend some time online, and video-chat with my parents, which was awesome. I got some great advice, heard some funny anecdotes about their week, and explained why Russian grammar is so hard: cases. Cases themselves make a lot of sense – they show something that might not be evident in the words otherwise. However, they can be very complicated. For example, Paul and Stephen like to run: Пол и Стефан любют бигать. If Stephen goes for a run: Стефэн бигает. However, if Paul goes for a run with Stephen … Пол бигает с Стефэном. If Paul usually goes for a run with Stephen, but didn’t today… Пол бигал без Стефэна. And, those are just three of the six cases in Russian. However, learning Russian is a lot of fun!

10 October 2013

10 October 2013

Today I had a chance to sleep in a bit – my first class wasn’t until 1150am. However, my day didn’t end until after 630pm, so, trade-off. I got up, and got dressed. As I was teaching today, I wore my skirt and tights, as it looks more formal and blends in better. I also applied more make-up than I usually do. I had a very lazy and relaxed breakfast of kasha and coffee, before heading to class. I wore my Merrels (as my nice shoes rub blisters if I try to walk a long distance in them), and brought my nice shoes in my bag. The school has some security guards that sit at the front door, and one of them gave me a funny look (black skirt, professional dress, brown sneakers, hand knit blue/green socks), until I changed into my nice shoes. I jokingly asked “better?” as I don’t think they speak much/any English, but one of them nodded. There is a very strict dress code at School #5, and a lot of the male students wear suits to class, so those shoes really stood out. I then went off to my class. There were 6 students in class, and I was teaching a review unit, I think. I started off by introducing myself and letting them introduce themselves. In order to make them feel more comfortable about speaking up in class, I then introduced myself in Russian, mentioning that I was also learning a new language.

After that, I had them do some exercises with “who, whose, that, which, where,” which were in their workbook, by answering the question out loud. They had about 20 questions, and they only got one wrong (One student confused “is this the” with “this is the”). I explained why her answer was wrong – “is this the” means that it has to be a question – and added that had it been “this is the” she would have been right. After that, we went into a vocab review. I gave them 2 minutes to work with their desk-mate and come up with as many sentences that they could with the words. One group didn’t really work together, and almost all of their sentences were exactly as used previously in the textbook. I had them read their sentences to the class. After that, I went over 8 “new” words, explaining them, and giving examples. I then had them work together to create a story using the new words. I had two students switch seats, to try to get better pairings for the stories. The stories were correctly written, but not as creative as I would have liked. Very few pronunciation and grammatical errors. After that, I went over three new words, which have similar meanings to new words: tour vs. trip, bank vs. shore, brochure vs. leaflet. I think that they understood the words, as one of them was able to give me an example.

I still managed to finish 10 minutes early, so I tried to get the students to ask me questions. They seemed a bit shy, so Y suggested questions for them to ask me. They seemed fascinated by Obi-Wan, so I answered lots of questions about him. After class was over, I talked to Y about what classes she wanted me to observe, and what class she wanted me to teach next week. She wants the same schedule – observe on Tuesday, teach on Thursday. Then, I had a short break before I had to co-teach “Teaching vocab.”

M and I had spent hours preparing this lesson, so I thought it was at least presentable. We presented how the various books thought that a native TEFL should teach/present vocab, having them guess how we know words. We created a vocab list, and then had them play a Jeopardy! style game, where they had to answer in the form of a question, and give the vocab word. Some were easier than others: this Celine Dion song was used as the ______ for Titanic (Theme song; “What is “My Heart Will Go On””). One of the questions was a perfect example of connection: one of our questions (Bono preformed this song as a __________ in Across the Universe) we thought was going to be very hard, but Across the Universe is one of my cluster-mates (L)’s favourite movies, and the “answer” (“What is “I am the Walrus””) is the song she associates the strongest with Bono. We then pointed out that connections are incredibly important when teaching vocab – L knew that answer because she knew the movie – which means that you can build off what the students already know. One of my cluster-mates (E) wasn’t quite sure as to the objectives of the game – he gave the vocab word, but didn’t “question” the “answer.” We then explained the purpose of the game – it was a game that could be scaled (don’t use “Social-activism” for lower forms), adapted to just about any topic (one of our questions was about Beatlemania), and can be used in just about any stage of the lesson (it could be presentation, practice, application, or reserve activity). We then went back over the important things to remember when teaching vocab, and some strategies for that.

After we finished teaching, S told us what we need to do for tomorrow, and some of what we need to do for next week, before telling M and me that we did a great job. We were able to leave a few minutes early, which gave us a longer lunch break. It was also 2pm, which is why my day ended so late. Class started at 315, and ended almost 3 and a half hours later, with a 15 minute break snuck in there. In Russian, we learned some words that describe frequency, as well as words to describe a school day. We talked about our first lesson, and went over various sentences that we’d written to practice grammatical forms. We said the sentence in English, and one of our cluster-mates got to translate it. We went over the daily routine vocab, asking our cluster-mates questions about what we were doing, when/where we did things. We practiced the words again, and then had a brief break.

After the break, we learned some very important things – days of the week, months of the year, and what preposition (and case) to use with them. We played a game with spelling them, and putting them in order. We also answered questions about what holiday was in what month. We had to say what month our birthday was in. We then got our home task (ask our host family some questions and go over the vocab, again).

I walked back to the apartment, had dinner (after being fussed at because it was late and I hadn’t eaten at PC), and did my homework. I was able to hang out online and chat with my parents, which was awesome.

09 October 2013

09 October 2013

Today, I got up, had a breakfast of kasha, and walked to class. Today, we went over time – we learned how to say what time it is yesterday – and then played tic-tac-toe, where we had to say the time to get the points. After that, be learned how to conjugate and use “to see.” We also went over something that we had seen – consonant interchange. When the conjugation stem of various verbs end in certain letters or letter combinations, the consonant changes. Sometimes (usually) only in the “I” form… While this helps me remember how to conjugate certain verbs, there is no way to tell if the verb does consonant interchange only in the “I” form, or if it is completely irregular. We also learned some expressions that use “to see.”

After that, we moved on to complex sentences: I know that you like to read. I know why you read historical fiction. I like to eat borshch because it is delicious. I know that you like to read because it is fun. Basically, a sentence with (at least) two subjects. After making up some sentences to practice this form, we reviewed “so that/in order to/as to.” We’d written sentences using that phrase earlier in the week; ones like “I went to Kyiv so that I could buy a kettle” and “Paul went to the park so that he could run with Stephen.” We reviewed/learned the difference between “I’m home” and “I’m going home.” We then learned the last case – the Locative. Well, half of it. We learned the endings for masculine, feminine, and neutral. Still have the plural endings to learn.

After a brief break (where I ate about half of my lunch, as I would get 15 minutes to eat during our later break), we continued. We went over the verbs of daily routine: I wake up. I get up. I eat breakfast. I teach English. I learn Russian. I eat dinner. I hang out with my family. We had to come up with sentences for them – usually, I get up at 8am. I usually iron clothes during the day. We also learned the words that would help us progress the story – first, then, and then, later, what’s more, after that. We paired up, and told our partner what we usually do during the day. We then read a short text, which we translated. We had to infer some words from context, so we learned a few more new words. We also learned what cases the nouns have to be in. We created sentences using our new words. Then, it was pushing time to go, so we got our home task – write up a very short text about our daily routines, write some complex sentences, and go over the daily routine verbs, as well as the days of the week.

After that, I had a very short time to eat – my tutoring had been moved up by 10 minutes, we went over, and I needed to be at School #5. I ate quickly, and was ready to have tutoring. V. started by asking some questions about how I am integrating into my host-family, if I have any x/c questions, and how I’m feeling over all. Then, she asked me to ask her questions, in an interview type set up. After about 10 minutes of that, she started to ask me questions. In order to graduate PST and become a PCV, I have to pass a language test, which is essentially a one-shot-only interview in Russian. I have to reach a certain level, and that is the highest level that anyone who has not previously studied Russian can get. So, V. is having us practice our interview. I have to figure out how to remember a few long and complicated words, as “educator,” “to knit,” and “to go hiking” are words that I will have to say. I will also be asked to recite a recipe (the girls tend to get asked this question), to describe my families (American and Ukrainian), as well as myself. I am not the best at doing interviews, in any language, so this will be a challenge for me to face. Not only do I have to give a good interview, I have to not speak in French. I’ve noticed that if I get flustered, confused, surprised, or flat-out don’t know a word, I will speak in French. I didn’t hear/understand the question: Répétez, s’il vous plait… I’m trying to describe something: Il y a… I’m surprised by a question: answer in French. I flat-out don’t know the word: I say the word in French. Otherwise, I think I am learning Russian pretty well: there are some words and phrases that I think I know.

After tutoring, the cluster trooped over to School #5, where we had English Club. We didn’t have much time to prepare activities, so we tried to stick to some basic activities. We introduced ourselves, in the way that we will be addressed by our students tomorrow. I’m the only one using my last name, but that is because “Miss Megan” is not something I can be called for the next 2+ years. We then had them introduce themselves. Not everyone was brave enough to introduce themselves in English, so we don’t know all their names yet, but we did have about 45 students turn out. Big group. After a few of them introduced themselves (they stood at their desks), we passed out slips of paper, where we wanted them to write their age and form, what they were interested in learning about, and what they wanted to do during English club. I spent about 10 minutes working with 2 students, who didn’t understand the assignment, but they were 10, and were at English club to learn.

We then split the group into 10-11, 12-15+, which effectively split the group in two. I went with the older group, who played hangman for a bit, before we switched groups. We tried a new game, which encouraged a lot of participation (good), but which was confusing. The came was that a student had to think of an animal, and the rest of the students had to try to guess what the animal was. We tried to get them to ask limiting questions (what colour is it?), but they kept asking “is it a blank?” They seemed to be having fun, though.

After English club, we all had lesson plan tutoring with S. M and I went last, as we wanted to finish our vocab planning. We were able to get it mostly finished before the rest of the class was done with their tutoring. We then went over our plans, got some advice, as well as some class materials that we could borrow. We had to make a few tweaks, but overall we had a solid lesson plan. Then, I went over my personal lesson plan with S. She had only a few suggestions – better ways to have the students practice/review their new material – which makes me feel more confident over all. If I can plan one lesson, after only having learned what I needed to cover on Tuesday, I think that I might, just might, be able to plan lessons. After my tutoring, M had his. I worked on my home task for V, and was able to complete about half of it, while M went over his lesson plan with S. After they were done, M and I worked together to finish our vocab lesson plan. We decided what we needed to know, needed to do, and needed to finish before tomorrow.

After that, I walked back to my host-family’s apartment, where I had dinner (mashed potatoes, pan-fried chicken, and cottage cheese vareniki), and finished my homework. I was able to go over the new vocab words, and ask my host-Mom some questions. We don’t have hot water, so I had a bucket bath, which made me feel more human after my full day of learning and practicing. My day starts and ends late, so I can sleep a bit more tomorrow morning. But, I won’t be back until close to 7pm, which is much later than usual, but might become a new normal, especially when I’m observing and teaching more lessons each week, having 2 hour tech sessions and 3 or 4 hours of Russian following.

08 October 2013

08 October 2013

Today I got up, got dressed, had a breakfast of Kasha with raspberry jam, and walked to School #5, as I was to observe my counterpart, Y, teach her class. I was able to ask her some questions, get a copy of the texts, and find out what she wants me to cover on Thursday before the class started.

There were only 6 students in her class, so it was a very small class. She started it by introducing me, and letting her students ask me questions. I got to show off some photos (the class was impressed that I have a pet snake and I live in a house; one of them said that her dream is to live in a house instead of a flat), and then the lesson began. The previous lessons had been about taking a 15 day tour of the US, so, as the native speaker, I was asked to read the sections. Next, Y had her students read the passages aloud, showed them pictures of mentioned locations, then had the students come up to the front of the room and recite one of the passages. After that, she gave her students a noun, and had them give her adjectives that could be used to describe that noun. She corrected some spellings (since Ukraine uses English (UK), so will this blog), and I noticed that the use of the target language wasn’t exclusive – she used Ukrainian to suggest a word, but required the students to say it in English. She also explained a few words in Ukrainian.

The new material presented was a collection of pronouns, the relative pronouns. She wrote the words on the board, and gave examples by using them in sentences. She then had the students copy the table into their day books, and then had them create sentences when given a noun and a description (as in, a clown is someone who makes people laugh). She also went over a conjugation of “to make.” As the lesson was double English, she assigned a home task, and then they had a brief break. I had a Tech session during her next lesson, so I wasn’t able to observe it.

Today’s Tech session was about lesson planning, as we are teaching our first lesson on Thursday. First, though, we went over English club – one of my cluster mates was told that the students were looking forward to the first English club meeting… tomorrow! We were able to quickly cover what we needed to know to have a successful meeting.

We then went over how to plan a lesson, and how much time to allocate to specific parts of the lesson. School #5 has 45 minute lessons, so we have to fill 45 min, but we have to fill only 45 min. We can (and should), write the homework on the board before class, but we will have to go over it, not just assume that the students will copy and understand it.

We went over how to write objectives, as they have to be very specific. They need to be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. We were given other tips – try to connect the warm up/motivation to the presentation of new materials. We can start with just about anything, so long as it is a warm up and motivator. Students have liked word searches, tongue-twisters, word associations, among others. We were also give tips as to how to present – flash cards and real objects work the best. Always have a object that we can throw – hot potato is a fun way to burn time, motivate, practice, apply… We were then given a few minutes to sketch a plan of our lesson, which we need to do for home task, as we have tutoring (where S goes over our plan add decides how SMART it is) tomorrow afternoon, after a full day of Russian. Just before we left for Russian, we went over what you need to do before and during the lesson. We also learned that we need to decide what we want our students to call us, as they use patronymic address. Just our first name would be to informal – just a friend from America, not a teacher – and a formed patronymic would be too forced. I already know that I wouldn’t last a minute being called Miss Megan (as Mister/Miss _______ ) is the usual PC suggestion, so I guess it’s the almost-to-formal “Ms. Bennett” for the next 2+ years. We then hurried to our Russian class, as we were running late.

Once back at V’s flat, we met up with the language training coordinator, Vl, who was there to meet with V. We spent sometime asking him questions, and practicing our Russian. We learned a few new words, as he would ask us the question we asked him, and then ask a clarification question. After that, we spent some time going over the past tense (what did you do yesterday), and asked “with who/whom” questions. We also went over how to ask what someone’s favourite dish is, or why they like something, as well answering it (we can say: “because it’s fun” or “because they are delicious”). We used our new words in a fake interview with another student (I got to “interview” Vl), and then got to present our partner to another student – “yesterday, I cooked with ______ (instr.), and I found out that ________ (nom).” After that, we had a break for lunch.

We boiled water for coffee/tea, and had lunch. I had bread, cheese, and grapes. The grapes here are amazing – completely sweet and juicy. Haven’t had a bad one yet. We made tea for V and Vl, who joined us after having a meeting to discuss the class. One of the things that Vl was here to do was to give us our bank cards, and the contract that we had to sign. We had to sign 2 copies (one for the bank, one for us) 3 times in each language! But, now we have our bank cards, so we will be able to get our stipend next month.

After lunch and signing official contracts, we went back to Russian. We went over time – the words for hours, minutes, and seconds change depending on how many of them there are… We then practiced telling analogue time, in Russian, remembering which variant of hours and minutes to use. After several rounds of practice, we learned a new verb phrase, which we practiced by asking a classmate what the time was, when the ______ was, and when we thought we would be how after the ______. Then, we learned a new verb, and the Russian translation for a famous Shakespeare quote: “to be, or not to be? That is the question.”

The new verb was “to be.” In Russian, “to be” is used primarily in the future tense. In fact the tense “will be ____ing” is formed by conjugating “to be” and adding the infinitive of the word to it. So, I learned how to form the simple future today. We practiced it, buy making up sentences based on what we would be doing tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, in a week, in a month, in a year, before going over a few new words. These words were the words of daily activities – wake up, get up, wash my face, get dressed, eat breakfast, make the bed, put on make-up, and others like that. We drew pictures next to the words to make it easier to remember them.

After that, we were done for the lesson, but M and I had to finish our lesson plans. We walked to his flat, where we created our materials for Thursday, and decided who was going to do what. While we were working, we made tea. In the space between M starting the tea to steep, and us remembering it (5-10 minutes, his host-Mom had put out a small tea tray for us, with the sugar bowl and some sweets. It was very nice of her. We kept working, and were able to finish our lesson planning and most of our handouts in about two hours.

As it was fully dark, and after 8pm, M walked me back to my host-family’s flat. I’d asked before we walked to his flat (should we go to my host-fam, as then you wouldn’t have to walk me back), but he said he liked the walk, the alone time. Once back at my host-family’s, host-Mom started reheating my dinner (a type of soup that had rice and a grated pickle – very good), while I changed out of my dress clothes. Dinner was a subdued meal, as my host-sister (still no heat or hot water in dorm) was working on her homework, and host-Mom had already eaten. They joined me for dessert – my host-sister had a grapefruit (which she shared), but host-Mom and I had kasha made with pumpkin. A pumpkin which she had grown in her garden. She grows beets, beans, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, peanuts, walnuts, grapes, carrots, onions, potatoes, pumpkin, and those are just the ones I remember.

After dinner, I did my Russian home task. V said that she would try to avoid giving us a lot of home tasks on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as they were already our busiest days, so I didn’t have that much to do.

Tomorrow is the first meeting of English club, so we get to run that, as well as going over our lesson plans for our first lesson on Thursday.

07 October 2013

07 October 2013

Today, I got up, got dressed, had a breakfast of kasha mixed with raspberry jam and coffee, and walked to Russian. The cluster was met by S, our TFC, who was walking back to her apt, so we were let in without having to call V down to open the door. We talked about what we did over our weekend, and learned some new verbs. I can now say that I walked to the store to buy products, and that I hung out with my (American) family via Skype. In Russian, the verb “to go” depends on what form of transport you used to get where you were going. So, yes, it’s a different verb for “I went to Kyiv” and “I went to the grocery store,” as I would have taken the bus to Kyiv, but I walked to the store.

After learning those verbs, we practiced making up sentences using the two verbs, but only in the past tense. They apparently don’t follow the standard conjugation scheme, so we aren’t supposed to use them in the present tense yet. We then made up sentences using “to like,” which conjugates using the dative case, not the nominative, so the verb itself only changes for number/gender but it doesn’t “conjugate.” We also played a rapid-fire response game, which is good practice, but it always seems like I get fussed at a bit more than the rest of the class. After this, we discussed who has met who’s neighbors, or another host family. I hadn’t yet met another host family, but I have talked to the neighbors, so I was able to describe the youngest neighbor when asked. Some of my cluster-mates have gotten to know other host-families, but I’m glad that I have met at least one person who isn’t a relative of my host-mom. V seemed glad that I was at least getting to know the neighbors. We then went into the kitchen where we when over verbs, kitchen supplies, and adjectives to describe food, before having a brief break.

I had a small snack of grapes, and we made tea/coffee, and we discussed some of what was happening. We then went back into class, where we went over more cases. We learned what cases various nouns (specifically kilogram, grivnia, and kopeck) are in when proceeded by a gendered noun and a cardinal number. Cardinal number 1 always uses a different noun form than any other number, and 2, 3, and 4 use a different one. 5-100 uses yet another one, but 21, 31, etc, use the noun for 1, and 22, 23, 24, 32, 33, 34, etc use the noun for 2, 3, 4. We also learned the cardinal numbers for 200-1000, as we will need to ask for 300 grams of something, or recognize number when told the price of something.

We then went over the difference between nominative and genetive cases, and when you use them. If I ask you if you have any bananas (like in Go Fish!), and you have some bananas, it’s a different case (nominative) than if you don’t have any bananas (genetive). We practiced making up sentences using genetive – no, I don’t have any _____. You also use genetive to say that you like to eat/drink something without something else: I like to eat salads without onions. Salad would be in the accusative case, which only shows when the noun is feminine.

After that, we moved on to the instrumental case. We’ve brushed the edges of the instrumental, when we’ve said who we like to do something with. As in, “Paul runs in the park with Stephen.” In Russian, you would add an instrumental case ending to “Stephen.” We practiced making up sentences saying that we liked something with something else: Paul likes running with Stephen,” and then moved on to liking something with something and without something: I like to drink coffee with sugar, but without milk.

Then, we practiced for our field trip. Last week, we were told that we had to make an outing to a local café, and we were given some vocab and phrases as to what we might hear or need to say at the café. We went over the dialogue, adding in various new phrases, and the left to find us a café. We had two field trips in one – we had to ask someone on the street if they could recommend a good café in Obukhiv. I asked a older gentleman, and he pointed me towards the one across the street, saying (I think), that it was a café during the day and a restaurant at night. The cluster ended up at a little café at the bus stop. It didn’t look like much from the outside, as it looked like the sort of place that sells halfway-decent food and coffee quickly and cheaply to people changing buses. I was only partly right, but in a very good way.

We all went in (after V asked us if we wanted to find another café, as this one was take-out only; I muttered something about it still being an experience to the PCT closest to me), and looked around. It looked and smelled right – pastries behind the glass counters, and loaves of bread in racks behind the counter, and it smelled like a bakery/pastry shop should. I was the first one to try to order something (raspberry strudel; she was out), so I waited and tried to decide what I wanted. I thought I saw something else that I wanted to try (chocolate croissant), but she was out of that as well. As I was asking V if my translation was correct, the shopkeeper said (V translated) that she had strawberry croissants, and they were still hot. I had to try that – strawberries and still hot? Yes, please. I also got a coffee. The cluster got our lunches and walked over to the nearby park to sit and have lunch. We all said that what we had was very good. My strawberry croissant was a very good croissant filled with still-piping-hot homemade strawberry pie filling. Excellent. The coffee was instant, from a machine, but it was still pretty good. The people working at the café were all very polite and willing to help us, and the prices were very reasonable.

After lunch, M* and I walked back with V to her apt, because M had tutoring and we are teaching a Tech session on Thursday, and wanted to plan the lesson after his tutoring. I did all of my homework for today, and took notes on half of the chapter about teaching vocab in More Than A Native Speaker (which is fast becoming my favorite textbook) during his tutoring. We then walked across the hall to S.’s apt, to ask her advice, but she had to kick us out after a few minutes, as she had to leave. We then walked to M’s host-families apt, where we spent a long time planning lessons.

I was able to asked his host-grandmother some questions, and she fussed at M for never writing with a pencil, as I kept making mistakes, but was able to erase them. At least, that’s what we think she was saying. She looked at M’s notes, and asked some questions about what he had written. As the younger host-sister thought my dad’s name was funny (and brought out a doll to prove it), I got to show off my photo album. M’s host-grandmother then wanted to see and correct my homework notebook, and she seemed to like my handwriting, unless I slipped and started to form a few letters in the Latin alphabet (a lowercase Latin ‘m’ looks like a lowercase/cursive Cyrillic ‘t’ for those of you keeping score at home…).

After we had tea, and I asked her my questions, M and I got started on our lesson planning, and his host-sister did her homework. She was writing in cursive Ukrainian, which makes my head hurt: what looks exactly like a lowercase, cursive ‘g’ is actually a ‘d’ sound, as well as the ‘m’/‘t’ distinction. Our lesson is to teach how to teach vocab, so we came up with a warm-up, 8 new words, a Jeopardy! style game, and then how we were going to present what we just did – this is how the TEFL Manual suggests you teach vocab, and these are the important things to remember when teaching vocab. We chose music as our broad category, and created 8 Jeopardy! answers (one easy, one hard, per each of the 4 categories), decided how we were going to present the answer, and what we wanted as the question. That was as far as we got, and it took us well over an hour, but I think that this was the truly hard part of the plan – deciding how to present the new material. Next, we have to create what we want to use as handouts, etc, for our class on Thursday. M’s host-family came home as we were working, so I got to meet his host-father and host-brother. As it was after 7pm (and getting dark), Ukrainian custom said that M should walk me back to my host-family’s apt, which he did, after telling his host-brother what he was doing and when he’d be back. We walked back, chatting about what we were going to be doing for the next few days.

Once I got back to the apt, dropped off my stuff, and changed out of my dress pants, it was almost 730. I lit the gas stove, and started heating dinner – soup and coffee. The soup was very good. Host-Mom came home just as the soup was heated through, but she didn’t want any. She started cooking something, but by the time I asked her, she was halfway done making sweet cottage-cheese vareniki. These are dessert dumplings, and are amazingly good. The recipe made a lot, so she called her son to come and get a bowl (the younger granddaughter loves them). Her son came up and asked what I was writing (a small glossary of what I’ve learned so far; Russian, pronunciation, English), and asked me the question I had just written (who are you (nationality)?), so I answered it – American, NC, W-S. If “Winston” gets a spark of recognition, I mime smoking and say “cigarette.” Her son said that he likes Winston Lights. He then thanked his mother in perfect, practiced, English, which made us all laugh. I finished up my glossary for the night, had one more vareniki, and spent some time online. Today was a long day.

(*name redacted)

05 and 06 October 2013

05 and 06 October 2013

Yesterday, I got up and walked down to my Tech Session. Saturdays are link days, so all 10 PCVs in Obukhiv were there. After a slow start, we got to work learning about teaching adults. Adults are very different than children, as they have many other responsibilities that they have to schedule their lessons around. They also learn differently – a child learner is more likely to take anything taught to them at face value, and will assume that what he or she is learning has no immediate use, while an adult learner had his or her own history and knowledge to bring to class, along with the belief that what they are learning has an immediate application. I noticed this when I was tutoring for the YMCA/Forsyth Tech – the adult learners wanted to do something like talk to teachers or doctors, or get a promotion at work. They didn’t want to discuss the use of red in The Count of Monte Cristo. We went over the challenges we will be facing, and some things that we can do to overcome those challenges. Then we went over how our week went, and what we thought of our respective schools. We observed completely different classes, with completely different teaching styles. Then we played a little game to see what we could remember about our Tech lessons from the last two weeks (which ended in a tie), and went over our schedule for the upcoming week. We all get to teach our first lesson this week. Mine is on Thursday, but I’m not positive on what the subject material is. I know it’s 7th form, and I think it’s prepositions.

After our tech session, we walked across the hall to our LCF’s apt, where we had our X/C session – resiliency. We went over possible problems or challenges that we think we might have to face and overcome, as well as some coping strategies. The PC is a organization where you (the PCV) might never see the outcome, as it will be in a few years. But, it will be there. It’s the little things that you have to look for. And, as the PC is a living example of Darwin’s adapt, migrate, or perish, we have to learn how to deal with, live with, and overcome some of the things that might be challenges to us. After that, Obukhiv 2 went to the bazaar, and we helped our LCF clean her apartment. I swept the carpet in our classroom, someone swept the hallway and kitchen floor, and someone else cleaned the stove. We were given tips as how to clean various parts of the apartment. We also went over our schedule for the week.

After that, another PCT and I walked to the market, as we wanted to get some supplies to teach our lesson on Thursday. We agreed to co-facilitate a Tech session on teaching vocabulary. We’re hoping to get the lesson planned on Monday, after Russian.

I returned to the apartment, checked my email, and was getting my homework prepared when host-Mom came back, with another bucket of mushrooms! She asked if I had had lunch (no), and asked why. I tried to explain that I had just gotten back, and hadn’t had time yet to figure out lunch. She set the mushrooms to soak, and we had lunch – bread, cheese, and homemade raspberry jam.

After lunch, I was taught how to handwash clothes. It was nowhere near as hard as people told me it was. Bit boring, and kneeling over the tub was a bit hard on my knees, but otherwise it wasn’t that bad. Now, I have clean clothes for a while! I was washing clothes when host-sister’s great-uncle came over, to have salted fish and beer and chat with host-Mom.

Host-sister came back shortly after he arrived, while I was rinsing my clothes, and we had tea together, after I hung my clothes out on the clothesline on the balcony. Before lunch, host-Mom had told me something that I thought translated to the fact that she didn’t think I should drink tea, as I have a cold, so I stuck to coffee. After our tea, host-Sister and I did our homework in my room, as she doesn’t like the smell of salted fish. Host-Mom baked a cake after her brother-in-law left. It was still in the oven when we all had tea. The misunderstand about me and drinking tea was that it is a Ukrainian cold remedy to drink raspberry or strawberry tea. It’s not herbal, it’s a few large spoonfuls of jam and hot water. It’s also very good. After tea, host-Sister and I put the icing on the cake. It’s a sponge cake, and we cut it in half, put a raspberry-sour cream-sugar mixture on both halves, thunked it back together, put more icing on top, followed by toasted walnuts. Host-sister and I watched Interview With The Vampire (her choice, she loves horror and supernatural), and had a tea break in the middle of the movie – a slice of cake and a cup of raspberry tea. After the movie, I spent some time online before going to bed.

This morning I slept in a bit. I got up, and made myself some coffee – I can now almost always light the match on the first strike. I then had a small bowl of the “icing” for breakfast – sour cream and raspberries make a very good yogurt-like mixture – with my coffee, before finished my homework. My TCF had given us a lot of homework on Friday, but most of it were reminders of what she wanted us to have done earlier in the week. I was mostly done when my host-sister got up.

She made Kasha for her breakfast and made some for me. I had it her favorite way – made with milk, with a few large spoonfuls of raspberry jam on top. It was quite good. After breakfast, we walked down to the market so I could buy groceries for lunch for the week. As we were leaving, the next-door neighbor was taking her younger sister for a walk, so they joined us. We walked through some clothes and shoe shops, as I had expressed an interest in what was available in Obukhiv. The answer is that I will likely have to go to Kyiv to get the shoes I’m looking for.

At the market, I spent just over what I’m allotted by the PC for lunches for the week (by 5g), but I did buy a bit more than I strictly needed (a few extra chocolate bars), and a small bag of cookies to have at tea, which were a bit hit. We all checked out and walked around the corner to a tiny, hole-in-the-wall bookshop, as host-sister wanted a gift for a friend. We wandered around the bookstore, which was awesome, and truly seemed to be bigger on the inside than it appeared outside. Host-sister found a book that she thought her friend would like, so she bought it, and we walked back to the apartment block.

Host-Mom was already home, and already cooking, when we got back. I was able to help her for the first time – I peeled potatoes. She was making soup and something that she called “Rago.” The neighbor, host-sister, and I had a late lunch together. The soup had a bit of curry seasoning, and the rago was eggplant and potatoes stewed in a slightly tomato-y sauce, with meat. We also had a slice of cake. While we were eating, host-Mom went to spend some time with her younger granddaughter.

After lunch, host-sister and the neighbor wrapped the book and chose a card. I went over my new vocab, and spent some more time online. Host-sister, the younger granddaughter and I had some tea together (raspberry for me), and walnuts. I asked where they got the walnuts – host-Mom roasted them in the oven – and learned that there is a walnut tree on the garden patch. They grow a lot of the produce we eat – the peppers, potatoes, grapes, plums, walnuts.

After a bit, I video-chatted with my parents (awesome!), and then had some (late) dinner. More rago, and the neighbor joined us for tea and cookies; I had more raspberry tea. It seems to sparkle as the sugar from the jam dissolves, which only makes it more fun to drink. Host-sister had to finish a powerpoint for homework, so she went to finish her homework, and the neighbor went home.

All-in-all, today was a very slow day, which I needed, as the week to come is going to be a long and stressful week. I get to teach my first lesson on Thursday.

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.