Math Makes Matt a Monster
It’s the first meeting with one of my classes. I walk into
classroom and the entire chalkboard is absolutely covered with algebraic
formulas from top to bottom. I know my students don’t study math; they are enrolled
in the records management department. To lighten the mood and make the students
feel more at ease about their English abilities in the presence of a native
speaker, I decide to make a joke. Pointing at the formulas on the board behind
me I ask, “Is everybody finished copying this?” There’s dead silence. Every
face in the room is perfectly expressionless. One student in the front row gets
up slowly and wades across the vast stillness to erase the chalkboard while the
rest of the students stare ahead intently, hoping not to incur any further
wrath from the new English teacher. Now I’m a monster. Shall we begin?
There’s Nothing Funny about the NSA
I talked with several of my classes about the ongoing
controversy surrounding the National Security Agency and Edward Snowden. As
chance would have it, NSA released a commercial for the
Super Bowl a couple of days after the class. The following week I showed them
the commercial and talked about how advertisements have become an integral part
of the Super Bowl experience. It seemed like a good way to link current affairs
and cultural nuggets to the material we had covered in class the week before using
a short, humorous video. However, there is a point in the commercial where the
NSA agent, Barry, is performing invasive surgery on a woman. As she wakes up
and realizes what he’s doing she becomes alarmed. Barry pulls the blood-soaked
surgical mask down past his mouth and assures her that, “it’s okay, it’s for
freedom.” The look of horror on my students face at the morbid humor was
priceless!
Ukrainian Culture Project
One idea I had for my Intercultural Communication classes
was to have the students create a class blog that described various aspects of
Ukrainian culture for an English-speaking audience. This was a chance for the
students to present “real Ukrainians” rather than have their country portrayed only
in terms of recent political events. As a motivational activity, we watched a USA Tourism Promotion
video. (If you want to feel a swell of pride at the cultural and geographic
diversity of the US, I encourage you to watch this video!) The video worked
and the students got really excited about the opportunity to present their
country in the way that they experience it. One of the students even blurted
out, “Awesome!” Those are the moments you hope for as you plan a class!
Week two. I ask my Intercultural Communication students to
describe the topics they have been thinking about for the blog project only to
be met with nervous whispers and deflected glances. My heart sank as I struggled
with the idea that they hadn’t put any effort into the project during the
intervening week. One of the students meekly asked if they could borrow my
laptop and their Ukrainian teacher insisted that I allow them to do so. What
happened next made my jaw hit the floor. Every student in the class had
conspired to assemble a comprehensive presentation about Ukraine. It covered
every aspect of culture, from food to faux pas, from music to must-see
locations in Ukraine. The presentation lasted over an hour and culminated in a
video presentation to match the USA Tourism Promotion video I had showed in
class the week before. The students had basically completed in a single week a
project that was intended occupy an entire semester. Молодці!
Class Photo
As I mentioned last fall, Ukrainians love posing for pictures,
so it was no surprise that a couple of my classes wanted to pose for pictures
with me. Here I am in a classroom with one of my Intercultural Communication
groups. You can see on the chalkboard that we were discussing English idioms
and the blog that Kathrina and I have been keeping.
So when another class asked to pose for a picture with me, I
thought nothing of it. It happened to be Valentine’s Day that day, and near the
entrance of the main building of the university they had a booth set up where
you could have a professional Valentine’s Day photo taken. (Valentine’s Day has
become increasingly popular in Ukraine over the past few years.) The students
wanted to pose with me and my counterpart, Khrystyna, in a downpour of hearts.
When the students posted the picture to Facebook, Khrystyna was so worried that
Kathrina would get the wrong impression that she sent me a message warning me
about the post!
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