First Week at My Site

So last weekend and this week was all about settling in and getting my feet wet (literally). When I arrived the snow was amazing in my little town. This week the snow has slowly melted, then freezes over at night and melts again the next day. My daily walk to school has been a wet one, but for the most part I really enjoy my 30 minute walk across town (the walk is a little faster or slower depending on if it’s water or ice I’m walking through). The snow has melted and shown me that most of the roads here are cobble stone. I can’t wait until the spring when everything is green and colorful. I’m sure it will be beautiful, and that is what I try to remind myself on these grey days without snow. Also on my walk to school on days I teach in the first period, I get to enjoy the sunrise. When the snow was around it was amazing to see the reds reflecting off the town from the lifted pedestrian walk. (I’ll be sure to take some photos some morning and post them).

This week I observed a lot of classes taught by my fellow ENG teachers. There is my counterpart, Halyna a 50 something year old woman who has 25 years of teaching experience, Svitlana, a 29 yr old hip teacher with impeccable English from her travels abroad as an interpreter, Natalia, 20 something old pregnant teacher who has been at the school a few years now, and Louda, the vice principle of my school who teaches a few ENG classes. They each are very kind to me and I’m very excited to work with all of them. I am teaching classes in the following grades: 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. I got the spread of grades which I am anticipating will teach me a lot about myself as teacher as well as give me an idea of what age group I prefer.

Along with observing classes this week, I have been putting time in at the teacher’s room. I have been getting to know the other teachers who don’t speak ENG but that doesn’t stop them from being incredibly friendly. Just because you don’t know their language does not mean they will stop talking to you. They are my greatest hope in being able to learn this language because in my classes and interacting with the students outside of class everyone wants me to speak English. I’ll have to buckle down if I want to learn this language.

I came to school expecting to observe, help out in classes and not really teach until after their holiday break which is New Years until the 14th of Jan. But my counterpart thought I could hand some classes so on Thursday, I jumped head first into my service.

Christmas Eve brought my first day of teaching. My first class at 8:30 in the morning was the 7th grade. I felt confident in my lesson plan but the class was wild. I was under the impression that my counterpart was going to observe the lesson and make sure the students stayed in line. She took the free time as a chance to run to the local market real quick. I survived but it was a mad house at some point. I had to relocate some of the trouble makers as well as tell them to put their cell phones away. At one point in the lesson, I was mid sentence when one of the boys in the front row took out his camera phone and snapped an action picture of me. I was like really…

Walking to the teacher’s room in between the next lesson, I was near tears thinking that my first lesson bombed. But I didn’t have more than 5 minutes to grab the lesson and books for the 11th form. The 11th form class saved my spirits. They are small class of 12 students who are very interested and motivated in learning English. At the beginning, they were a little hesitant to participate. So I walked over to a poster on the wall that was written in Ukrainian and attempted to read it. I struggled through it and then told my students all I ask from them is that they try. The lesson plan about holidays and tourism went incredibly well. It felt more like a conversation than a boring class. As of right now, they are my favorites.

After the 11th formers, I headed over the 5th grade class. I was told that these students don’t have that much potential which means they are on my top of the list for having the most creative and interactive lessons. We read a story for comprehension and then I had some fun activities to challenge how much they understood. One included throwing a ball around the classroom. Another one with students posting sentences on the board with post it notes. They found this to be very excited. Overall, I would say it went extremely well. After the class finished, one girl came over to me and asked me if I was going to teach them again. I said of course, not kidding this girl started to jump and clap. I’m pretty positive that I have at least one fan in the 5th grade class.

On my way home from school, I bought a bag of mandarins off the street (my favorite fruit at the moment). The man realized I was speaking with an accent and started looking at me weird. I explained that I was an American and that I’m teaching English in town. The only thing he could say in English was “my name is Elton, like Elton John.” He then was like “moment,” pulled out his cell phone and I had a short but lovely conversation with his random friend who spoke English. He asked for my number for his friend. It was too funny. I got out of it by saying I have a boyfriend in America plus that I didn’t have a cell phone. Meanwhile I was praying to God no one called my cell at the moment.

On Christmas Eve night, I went to a 2 hour Greek orthodox mass with one of the 7th formers, her mother and my counterpart. The first song was oh holy night which was really cool to hear sung in Ukrainian, but after that I didn’t have much of a clue what was going on. At the end of the service, the priests came out and wished everyone a Merry Christmas as well as a healthy and Happy New Year. They have this thin foam like bread that you snap a piece off and eat (sorta like communion but not really). My student turned to me and offered me a piece of hers and said “I wish you happy.”

Christmas day, I came to school with cookies and candy for my co-teachers. They presented me with a Christmas house that holds a candle. Someone had brought a small CD player and the vice principle said “this is for you” while the rest of the teachers started singing jingle bells. At this point, I really enjoy all of the teachers. The teacher’s room always has someone telling a story followed by a lot of laughter. Some of the teachers are kind enough to paraphrase what is going on so I can laugh with the group.

After finishing my lessons, I head to the marsuka stop to ride into Lutsk, the large city that is around a 30 to 40 min marsuka ride from my town. It was rainy pretty hard but that didn’t keep Jon, Laura, Allison and I from getting together (my cluster mates aka Team America). We had a few round of beer at pub with two Ukrainian girls as well as one German and Ukrainian man. Allison and Laura came back to my house where we were fed a very nice meal cooked by my new host mom. We also celebrated Christmas with a little vodka because you know when in Rome…

Yesterday, the girls hung out at my house. I showed them around my town. We enjoyed a meal at the café near the train station before coming back to my house to watch some movies on my laptop. Then later, we cooked grilled cheese the closest thing to American food that I’ve had since I had McDonald’s in Chernivhiv. Today, we got up at a decent hour walked them to the bus stop around 9:30 before I headed to my school to help out with an English competition between the top students in the district. I helped with the grading of multiple choice and true/false questions. From my school, we had a good representation of the champions of this “Olympiad” as they call it.

Pretty much the rest of tonight, I have worked on writing a couple of emails as well as this blog. Hope all is well and that everyone has a Happy New Year’s on Friday.

Kate


Lesson of the week: if you are an American with really large feet bring your own house slippers when invited over to someone’s house for dinner. Otherwise you will be embarrassed when the mom tries to give you a pair of her shoes, they don’t fit, so the dad gets his…and they still don’t fit. The grandmother of the house enjoyed this situation of mine. What can I say I bring the laughter even if my Ukrainian is horrible.