Approaching the Training Finish Line

At the end of September we posted some of our initial thoughts about the 11-week Pre-Service Training schedule.  Now that we’ve finished ten weeks of training we can say with a much higher degree of confidence what training is like.  So what have we been doing in Chernihiv?

Learning the Ukrainian Language

The single most difficult and time-intensive task has been to learn and apply the Ukrainian language.  We started out with four hours of group language training every day and a half an hour of one-on-one tutoring each week.  As training progressed we dropped down to three hours of group language learning each day but increased one-on-one tutoring to an hour and added an hour of paired tutoring each week.  Formal language instruction is given by Serhiy, our Language and Cross-Cultural Trainer (LCF in Peace Corps parlance).  In order to give us exposure to other native speakers and other teaching styles, LCFs rotate during the middle of training.  We spent weeks 5 through 7 with Luda as our rotation LCF.

Most of the time, language instruction takes place at Serhiy’s apartment, but there are some language learning tasks that require forays out into the wider world.  The first of these field trips took place on day one of language class.  We were taught a few phrases for asking directions and then shuffled out onto the street to ask locals how to get to a series of landmarks around town.  The ultimate destination of this field trip was the Life:) store where we purchased our cell phones.  Serhiy followed us around, feigning ignorance of the city’s layout (even though he’s lived here for three years), and we mumbled, muttered and generally butchered the simple phrases we had learned in the safety of the classroom only minutes before.  Of course we weren’t able to understand anything that was said to us, but the pointing and gesticulating that accompanied the replies got us moving in the right direction.  At one point I was given the task of asking for directions to the town square.  As no one else was immediately available for comment, I asked two 10-year old boys standing in front of a store where the square was.  With incredulous looks that a pack of full-grown adults could be so incompetent and oblivious to the obvious fact that the town square was the enormous open space a hundred feet in front of us, they simply pointed.

The humiliation of learning a language doesn’t stop there.  I’ve asked my host mom, “Можна Kalendar октябр?’ as a sad compilation of words from three languages indicating that I’d like to change the calendar page to the month of October.  The translation of this sentence is, “May I calendar October”, with one word each from Ukrainian, German and Russian.

Also, in a foppish attempt at conversation, I’ve commented that, “The girlfriend is very beautiful today.”  The words for girlfriend and weather are somewhat similar.

Kathrina once asked our host mom, “Are you broken this morning?”  For some reason the words for broken and tired had gotten crossed in our heads.

Other times we expel a stream of Ukrainian-sounding words, peppered liberally with “ums”, from our mouths and get nothing but puzzled looks or blank stares.  Sorry, we’ll fix that in class tomorrow.

In our defense though, I’d like to highlight some of the difficulties we’ve encountered with learning the Ukrainian language: The word ‘to use’ is використовувати.  I believe that Mary Poppins referred to this as “something quite atrocious”.

Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL)

Language learning is an important part of the Peace Corps experience, because it allows you integrate into your community and interact with host country nationals.  (That’s Peace Corps-speak for Ukrainians.)  However, the job we are here to do is to teach English to Ukrainians.  Of the 49 Peace Corps trainees in our group, 40 have been assigned to secondary education (middle school and high school), and the other 9 of us, Kathrina and myself included, have been assigned to higher education (college and university).  Therefore, another part of our training involves an internship at Chernihiv National Pedagogical University and a series of activities to improve our abilities as teachers.

Kathrina and I are responsible for teaching two classes each week, with each class lasting an hour and twenty minutes.  We began our internship by co-teaching lessons, but by the end we were each taking the lead on one of the two classes each week.  Peace Corps promotes a student-centered approach to language instruction that allows the students as much time as possible to practice using the language in class.  Our presence in the classroom also gives students an opportunity to practice English with a native speaker.

Kathrina and I presenting a culture "word cloud" to our class at Chernihiv National Pedagogical University.

Our class has 12 students in the third year of their university studies (college juniors), although we’ve only ever seen all 12 of them together one time.  All the students are majoring in English, and their ability with the language is high enough to be able to focus on content rather than teaching basic grammar.  This has given us the chance to discuss a wide variety of topics such as movies and TV, the US education system, controversial topics in US schools, cultural differences between Ukraine and the US, and so on.

One difference that we noticed is that students tend to attend classes based on the number of points they will earn by showing up.  On average only half of the students show up to class on any given day.  Since Practical English (the class we teach) is relatively low in points compared to say, History, the students are less likely to attend this class.  As a teacher it’s difficult to maintain continuity in a class when student behavior is incentivized this way, but the students who are in class are very bright and motivated.  It will be interesting to see if this attitude is typical across Ukraine or if it is particular to Chernihiv National Pedagogical University.

In addition to the practical experience of teaching in a Ukrainian university, we also work with Masha, our Technical and Cross-Cultural Facilitator (TCF in Peace Corps parlance).  Masha provides weekly tutoring sessions to help us with lesson planning and interpreting classroom behavior.  She also leads our cluster in technical training sessions, where we discuss teaching methodology, language acquisition and culturally appropriate classroom management strategies.  All of this is designed not only to make us better teachers but also to help us understand the social interactions we encounter in the classroom.

English Language Club

Another part of our training involved organizing a series of English club events for the university students.  We did this as a cluster, which was great, because our cluster-mates are an amazing group with a diverse set of talents!  We had three events with three different themes: Halloween, “The Emperor’s New Groove” (which included a lama piñata handmade by Sarah), and Thankschristmasing.  (What could be better than celebrating both of those holidays together?)  I think the pictures speak for themselves…

Cluster 1 at the "Halloween" English Club meeting.  From left to right are Sarah, Leslie, Lauren, Kathrina and I.  Leslie is dressed as a baseball player.  The rest of us are dressed as Peace Corps Volunteers.

Halloween fun!  One of the attendees is carving a pumpkin at the "Halloween" English Club meeting.  Ukrainians are apparently naturally gifted at arts and craft...

One of our English students imitating her group's pumpkin at the "Halloween" English Club meeting!

Another one of our English students poses in costume with their group's pumpkin at the "Halloween" English Club meeting.

Cluster 1 poses with Sarah's handmade lama piñata.  On the right is Serhiy, our cluster's language teacher.

Now that's a lama!  Sarah and Leslie pose with the cluster 1 mascot before its violent death during "The Emperor's New Groove" English Club meeting.

This is the last known picture of the cluster 1 mascot.  Taken only moments before its death at the hands of an enthusiastic participant in "The Emperor's New Groove" English Club meeting, the lama's death was celebrated by students in a gluttonous sugar-soaked feast of Ukrainian candy.  We'll miss you lama...

Community Project

The last big piece of training was the Community Project.  A Community Project involves identifying a need within the community and organizing an event to help address that need.

Our cluster organized a workshop for the university teachers to present them with an “Electronic Toolbox”, which was basically a list of free online resources that the university English teachers might find helpful in planning their lessons.  These included links to major US news websites, English teacher lesson sharing websites, plagiarism detection software, grading tools, and online education courses.

The workshop itself was only a couple of hours, but the planning phase took weeks.  The most time-consuming tasks were filling out the paperwork before and after the event!

The skills and experience we acquire by putting an event like this together will be useful once we get to our permanent site and want to organize something without the aid of our cluster-mates and our Peace Corps instructors.

Event planning is serious work that requires dedication and concentration. Only those with the will and the patience to fill out 34 pages of detailed forms describing an hour-and-forty-minute event will persevere.  Peace Corps is the toughest job you'll ever love!

What Happens During Week 11?

As we head into the final week of training there are a couple of major events awaiting us.  First, on Tuesday, we will have our Language Proficiency Interviews, which will assess how much Ukrainian we’ve learned over the past several months.  We have twenty minutes to strut our stuff; wish us luck!  We also have a series of tests to take to show that we’ve learned enough about safety and security, Peace Corps policies, and health issues to work effectively in Ukraine.

But the big event is the Big Unveiling of our permanent site locations.  Next Wednesday or Thursday we will find out where we’ll be spending the next two years.  It’s like being eight years old and waiting for Christmas morning.  Stay posted for more updates…