I had put of posting about my first experience of Church in The Ukraine partially because of lack of time and partially because I forgot. However, having seen Andrew Brims' latest post I am convinced this was divinely inspired.
Last Sunday I went to A Baptist church in Dnipropetrovsk, I have to say I wasn't certain what to expect and on my way over I did suddenly start to worry about the potential social fax pa that could result if "Sunday best" was still the norm here. Luckily for me it wasn't as I discovered to my relief when I met my guide and translator for the day, a fellow teacher here named Claire. Claire Is a Canadian who has lived here for 4 years now, having moved here during her university degree to complete her minor in Russian. Needless to say her assistance was very useful and I have to say I would have been very lost had she not come along.
There were many other English speakers at the church (of varying levels) but having a friend who speaks your language as a native is certainly advisable.
After working my way over Via Marshootka and being introduced to several people Claire and I took our seats and the service began. Surprise number one soon followed!
About 12 people went to the stage, about 5 singers various musicians (including acoustic and electric guitars) whilst someone gave a welcoming speech in Russian to the assembled...er...assembly. The influence of Hillsong had clearly been felt in this part of the world!
My suspicions were confirmed when Later I heard the riff for "everyone needs compassion" and I started to quickly try and guess as much of the lyrics in Russian as I could. I was quite proud at managing to translate the who first line of the song before it appeared on the small laptop screen to my right [the projector was down, which didn't help the experience of singing in a different language.]
What did make this service different from most others I have been to was the mini first sermon followed by a longer sermon later on. The theme was harvest and the preachers looked at being thankful for God's provision, Giving him out first and our last (because everything actually comes from God), not boasting in our own efforts before finally looking at being thankful for not just food but for our salvation that is completely God's act [and by extension how the harvest festival and saying grace were intentionality reminders to be thankful to God for our Salvation daily].
It is probably at this point you can see why having a fluent speaker was very useful! Despite slow and steady progress in my Russian, my progress has been...SLOW and steady.
After the service I was taken through to another room and low and behold there was coffee! [which was received with thanks giving!] as well as various fruit and perozina [a blanket term for sweet cake type things].
I couldn't stay for too long afterwards (as I was joining a friend for Salsa Classes (yes I am having lessons now!)) However I was invited to go to the Alpha and Omega students group to meet some young people from other churches. As I said I couldn't attend but I shall be going to their English event they are having next friday.
During the whole Time I was bearing in mind my friend Andrew Brims, experience in Malaga where he compared the church service to one that he would have back home and there were obvious similarities. I could recognise some of the songs (and a few more sounded strangely familiar), there was a standard sermon, there was a large contemporary band, they had notices [the sign of a church service] and there was coffee afterward.
However I did notice differences (other than the obvious language element) I was welcomed by many people, people kept coming back to me and speaking to me (even those with very poor English) there was a lot of life in the church, I couldn't tell you who the Pastor was until he started to preach and the sermon made great reference to Ukrainian culture and events in their history and we shared some food afterwards.
It was a Harvest sermon as well so I won't take it as a completely standard service, However I am looking forward to going along to the next one and seeing how this experience is similar or different.
Friday 22 October 2010
Wednesday 20 October 2010
Personal reflections on a task
This morning I was teaching a Buisness English class (pre-intermediate level, 60 minutes long, one student turns up on time the rest appear over the course of the next hour session) on presenting visual information. The lesson included identifying the names of certain charts/diagrams, filling in some information on the charts and also learning some vocabulary to describe the charts/information on the chart. The lesson was running slightly faster than I anticipated and so I set a final task of getting students to draw a personal graph/pie chart and then describe the information on it. This could be about business or their personal life and so unsurprisingly they choose their personal life (often a nice change after a work intensive lesson). What was very interesting was what they choose to display in their graphs.
Most choose to go for pie charts of some sort, this was possibly because I made an example of the break down of the lesson including the 15% where there was only 1 student, or possibly some other factor. One chose to show how she spends here time during an average day. I instantly realised that this would have been a great task to set and would have been really interesting to see how similar/different peoples days were, what their responsibilities at work were (vocab we had just looked at) and also what they did in their spare time. I made a quick note on some paper so that I would make a more permanent note.
The other was a students break down of the lesson time. He identified the amount of time spent talking in Russian, the amount of time I spent talking, the amount of time we did feedbacks/checking answers and also the amount of time spent on communicative activities (though he didn't put it like that). The good point was that his chart said that I spent very little time talking! (always encouraging when the aim is to get the students to speak as much as possible). The bad was how much time he identified as Russian speaking time.
After I saw his chart (which luckily he didn't show the rest of the class) I had to accept that he was roughly right, there was a lot of time spent speaking in Russian. This was partially due to the presence of a student who very rarely attends, when she does she is late and also gets very embarrassed about being behind the other students (which doesn't help with her attendance record). There is also another student who with the exception of saying an English word or doing a communicative task REFUSES to speak in English. I have tried explaining to her the benefits of spending as much time as possible talking in English and reminded her during lessons but she still refuses to budge. From speaking to other teachers this seams to be a pre-existing condition and problem that must be tackled. In addition to that the student who came up with this Pie chart also often discusses in Russian (which does of course raise the question, Does he actually think 30% is too much time or not enough??).
Having previously only taught in a Multi-lingual context (with perhaps only a couple people speaking the same language, who were easy to separate.) the issue of L1 (first langauge) is one that has certainly been a struggle to cope with. At first I almost tore my hair out if a single word was uttered in L1 (even when children who could barely speak a word of English spoke in russian) but then there has been the question of have I now gone too far the other way and accepted defeat.
In an effort to help understand why students speak in L1 and when it can be helpful I picked up a few articles and will write a post [series of posts] covering my thoughts on L1, when it's useful, when not, and how we can maximise the amount of English our students learn through careful use/tactics to avoid L1.
Most choose to go for pie charts of some sort, this was possibly because I made an example of the break down of the lesson including the 15% where there was only 1 student, or possibly some other factor. One chose to show how she spends here time during an average day. I instantly realised that this would have been a great task to set and would have been really interesting to see how similar/different peoples days were, what their responsibilities at work were (vocab we had just looked at) and also what they did in their spare time. I made a quick note on some paper so that I would make a more permanent note.
The other was a students break down of the lesson time. He identified the amount of time spent talking in Russian, the amount of time I spent talking, the amount of time we did feedbacks/checking answers and also the amount of time spent on communicative activities (though he didn't put it like that). The good point was that his chart said that I spent very little time talking! (always encouraging when the aim is to get the students to speak as much as possible). The bad was how much time he identified as Russian speaking time.
After I saw his chart (which luckily he didn't show the rest of the class) I had to accept that he was roughly right, there was a lot of time spent speaking in Russian. This was partially due to the presence of a student who very rarely attends, when she does she is late and also gets very embarrassed about being behind the other students (which doesn't help with her attendance record). There is also another student who with the exception of saying an English word or doing a communicative task REFUSES to speak in English. I have tried explaining to her the benefits of spending as much time as possible talking in English and reminded her during lessons but she still refuses to budge. From speaking to other teachers this seams to be a pre-existing condition and problem that must be tackled. In addition to that the student who came up with this Pie chart also often discusses in Russian (which does of course raise the question, Does he actually think 30% is too much time or not enough??).
Having previously only taught in a Multi-lingual context (with perhaps only a couple people speaking the same language, who were easy to separate.) the issue of L1 (first langauge) is one that has certainly been a struggle to cope with. At first I almost tore my hair out if a single word was uttered in L1 (even when children who could barely speak a word of English spoke in russian) but then there has been the question of have I now gone too far the other way and accepted defeat.
In an effort to help understand why students speak in L1 and when it can be helpful I picked up a few articles and will write a post [series of posts] covering my thoughts on L1, when it's useful, when not, and how we can maximise the amount of English our students learn through careful use/tactics to avoid L1.
Saturday 16 October 2010
An Atheist walks into Alpha
Ever wondered what an Atheist makes of the Alpha course? Well actually Adam Rudford has been writing about his experience of the course for a while now. Admittedly this is one persons views of the Alpha course and to take this as a absolute guide of what every Atheist would think would be ridiculous but still it could be very interesting.
Having browsed the latest post I did find a very interesting comment that he made. One of the people who was on the course with him appears to have decided that God does exist, in his own words she is an intelligent and thoughtful woman, however this decision of her makes him unhappy and he feels as though his arguments have failed. It is also interesting that he blames himself for this failure to convince (despite "[his] sturdy but polite defence of science and attack on healing (the most galling session)"). I find his response so intriguing that he accepts she is cleaver and a thoughtful person but can't accept this decision as being well thought through.
Anyway I will certainly be going through the posts and seeing what he made of it.
Having browsed the latest post I did find a very interesting comment that he made. One of the people who was on the course with him appears to have decided that God does exist, in his own words she is an intelligent and thoughtful woman, however this decision of her makes him unhappy and he feels as though his arguments have failed. It is also interesting that he blames himself for this failure to convince (despite "[his] sturdy but polite defence of science and attack on healing (the most galling session)"). I find his response so intriguing that he accepts she is cleaver and a thoughtful person but can't accept this decision as being well thought through.
Anyway I will certainly be going through the posts and seeing what he made of it.
Thursday 14 October 2010
Getting more than you bargained for
As the rolling stones once sang "you can't always get what you want" (actually they sang this many times but that would ruin the saying). However sometimes we actually get what we want and more. In a follow up action to the conference I asked if I could observe some more experienced teachers (as I hadn't had the chance to see any since I have been here and it is certainly a great way to pick up tips for teaching your own class). The response was highly positive towards my suggestions! "Of course you can, in fact why don't we do what we did last year" [alarm bells] "a peer observation week when any teacher can observe any other teacher with no for warning" [arg!!!] plus we can do lesson observation master classes where experienced teachers take your class and you can see how they deal with the class and pick up some things from them."
Okay so this will actually be a great experience and to be honest we often only get a very short notification that we will be observed anyway [and our lessons should be good enough for observations even if they aren't observed!] so it should actually be a great experience. Still I was hoping to observe more lesson and not to be observed more!
Wednesday 13 October 2010
Monday 11 October 2010
The Next Chapter
As I mentioned before the weekend I was off in Donestk this last weekend at the 25th International House Ukrainian workshop. It was a great time with some amazing speakers and great teachers there. I certainly enjoyed the many different experiences from that weekend (including releasing a Chinese lantern from the centre circle of the Dombass stadium, watching a couple of ballet performances, witnessing a scots man perform ACDC in the Irish pub in Donestk (and then have hundreds of girls ask for his photo), having a Skype conference with Scott Thronbury (oh and 123 other people) being interviewed for an Eastern European TV station, watch a Russian singer perform (who was pretty good) teach some "english" dance moves to hundreds of Ukrainians and many more (which I will blog about later) However It started me on a train of thoughts about my future, both job and blog wise.
Job wise the overwhelming feeling was just that I love teaching and I think teaching English in particular. I say I think because lack of trying/considering other subjects may be influencing this and as such I may equally (or even potentially love greater) teaching another subject but obviously this raised many other questions. If I love teaching English so much then I pretty much NEED to spend another year abroad as there just aren't enough jobs in England (at least that wan't so little experience), The market may change but as it stands I would basically have to spend another year abroad [or possibly move north but that may in effect just be abroad].
This was however backed up by how much I like the Ukraine (in particular seeing a different city with all it's wonders) and further to that, how much I am enjoying learning/speaking Russian. As such staying in Dnipropetrovsk/the Ukraine/Russian speaking countries would not be as bad as I might have thought.
Another thought provoking...er. thought came during the talk from Lucy Horsfield one of the big figures within International House World organisation and International House London. She talked about the impact of blogging on teaching English and how we could learn from other teachers this way. It reminded me about my own blog and made me think about a couple of things. Perhaps I should do some more teacher specific things, as in lesson ideas, interesting articles on methodology, resources etc.
In addition to this I realised that this blog has had a complete lack of Political blogging since I moved to the Ukraine (with perhaps 2 exceptions in articles). As such I have decided on two things, one I am taking myself of the political blogging lists for different services (including Lib Dem Blogs). the other one I am still considering is weather to just resign to not doing any political blogging at all (and intentionally avoid it) or to just not state that I will. At the moment I favour the latter but we shall see. Either way you shouldn't come to this blog expecting any political posts.
So I am going to go through some further changes to the blog (such as the current AD free state etc and now a tumblr version) to make it as user/teacher friendly as possible and still allow me to write personal blogs. Thanks to everyone who has encourage the political blogging side and especially to Lib Dem Voice for the links and golden dozen awards. It was great to find out that someone thinks you have something intelligent to say.
Anyway I hope you do want to continue reading my adventures in the Ukraine and perhaps find out some information about teaching English as a foreign language and as such you will stay on this blog. If not then Thank you any way.
Job wise the overwhelming feeling was just that I love teaching and I think teaching English in particular. I say I think because lack of trying/considering other subjects may be influencing this and as such I may equally (or even potentially love greater) teaching another subject but obviously this raised many other questions. If I love teaching English so much then I pretty much NEED to spend another year abroad as there just aren't enough jobs in England (at least that wan't so little experience), The market may change but as it stands I would basically have to spend another year abroad [or possibly move north but that may in effect just be abroad].
This was however backed up by how much I like the Ukraine (in particular seeing a different city with all it's wonders) and further to that, how much I am enjoying learning/speaking Russian. As such staying in Dnipropetrovsk/the Ukraine/Russian speaking countries would not be as bad as I might have thought.
Another thought provoking...er. thought came during the talk from Lucy Horsfield one of the big figures within International House World organisation and International House London. She talked about the impact of blogging on teaching English and how we could learn from other teachers this way. It reminded me about my own blog and made me think about a couple of things. Perhaps I should do some more teacher specific things, as in lesson ideas, interesting articles on methodology, resources etc.
In addition to this I realised that this blog has had a complete lack of Political blogging since I moved to the Ukraine (with perhaps 2 exceptions in articles). As such I have decided on two things, one I am taking myself of the political blogging lists for different services (including Lib Dem Blogs). the other one I am still considering is weather to just resign to not doing any political blogging at all (and intentionally avoid it) or to just not state that I will. At the moment I favour the latter but we shall see. Either way you shouldn't come to this blog expecting any political posts.
So I am going to go through some further changes to the blog (such as the current AD free state etc and now a tumblr version) to make it as user/teacher friendly as possible and still allow me to write personal blogs. Thanks to everyone who has encourage the political blogging side and especially to Lib Dem Voice for the links and golden dozen awards. It was great to find out that someone thinks you have something intelligent to say.
Anyway I hope you do want to continue reading my adventures in the Ukraine and perhaps find out some information about teaching English as a foreign language and as such you will stay on this blog. If not then Thank you any way.
Thursday 7 October 2010
How to convert your keyboard to Russian in a few easy steps
Since originally posting this back in October 2010 where all I did was make my own stickers I have actually bought some stickers for the keyboard so that they can be seen. You can find them here on Amazon.
If you don't need the keys then you can activate the option to type in Russian via the control panel [in windows] and selecting Russian as an alternative language setting.
I hope this helps.
Wednesday 6 October 2010
Sticking out abroad
The decent in to winter is well and truly under way. Although I did report a few weeks back that the temperature had dropped this was a temporary measure with their recovery back to wonderful highs of mid 20's Celsius. However a quick check of recent weather reports shows that the current highs are in the tropical low teens (if that).
At first I had been wary of donning my scarf to hold of the garotting hand of the wind around my throat. However no sooner had I started my expeditions, scarf in toe, I noticed that many other men wear also wearing their scarf's as well and did not feel so awkward about my clothing arrangements. I don't normally worry about what I wear or similar issue but here it is a different story due to a strange and unexpected factor. I look foreign.
I'm not sure what it is (well I know some factors) but apparently I stick out as though I have a sign which says "English" above my head. My first instincts was that this was due to my obviously accent when ever I spoke. However the continued looks in the streets, being informed by one of the Ukrainian receptionists that no one wears a smart jacket and a rucksack (and in fact only kids wear rucksacks really) and being asked for a photo (twice) made me realise that actually this was due to my appearance.
Perhaps coming for a place where there are so many people from different back grounds makes it harder to identify someone in the street as being foreign but here my looks, very dark hair and bone structure, are obviously foreign. there are some obvious advantages, people generally forgive my horrific pronouciation ( р and ы are particularly hard letters) and random people wishing to speak to me in English is quite a nice treat. However I don't like the idea that I stick out here.
Of course there isn't really much I can do. I can buy a new bag (well I did) I can think about what I wear....(see above) but the factors that really reveal my identity are written in to who I am.
It's interesting to think about this in terms of personality. After all, often the elements that make us most stick out are the attributes of our personality that are so central to us. Sometimes we just want to hide these and just not stick out but really we're just covering up ourselves. Why should we do this? It doesn't really work anyway (as everyone knows) and if it does work then we aren't actually being the people we are. We should be proud of these quirks that make us the unique people that we are.
At first I had been wary of donning my scarf to hold of the garotting hand of the wind around my throat. However no sooner had I started my expeditions, scarf in toe, I noticed that many other men wear also wearing their scarf's as well and did not feel so awkward about my clothing arrangements. I don't normally worry about what I wear or similar issue but here it is a different story due to a strange and unexpected factor. I look foreign.
I'm not sure what it is (well I know some factors) but apparently I stick out as though I have a sign which says "English" above my head. My first instincts was that this was due to my obviously accent when ever I spoke. However the continued looks in the streets, being informed by one of the Ukrainian receptionists that no one wears a smart jacket and a rucksack (and in fact only kids wear rucksacks really) and being asked for a photo (twice) made me realise that actually this was due to my appearance.
Perhaps coming for a place where there are so many people from different back grounds makes it harder to identify someone in the street as being foreign but here my looks, very dark hair and bone structure, are obviously foreign. there are some obvious advantages, people generally forgive my horrific pronouciation ( р and ы are particularly hard letters) and random people wishing to speak to me in English is quite a nice treat. However I don't like the idea that I stick out here.
Of course there isn't really much I can do. I can buy a new bag (well I did) I can think about what I wear....(see above) but the factors that really reveal my identity are written in to who I am.
It's interesting to think about this in terms of personality. After all, often the elements that make us most stick out are the attributes of our personality that are so central to us. Sometimes we just want to hide these and just not stick out but really we're just covering up ourselves. Why should we do this? It doesn't really work anyway (as everyone knows) and if it does work then we aren't actually being the people we are. We should be proud of these quirks that make us the unique people that we are.
Monday 4 October 2010
A few Christian blog post I have been enjoying
Two of my friends have written some quite thought provoking post on the church, people in the church and [as much as it pains me to use the term] post modernism Christianity. [it should be noted that we were all involved with the well Christian community in Sutton over the last few year and hence our connection to each other.]
The first is from Andrew Brims, he is a Christian who currently lives in Malaga Spain . I have been referring to him as a missionary out there how I was recently reminded that actually every Christian is in fact actually a missionary in their own location. As such although this title is correct so is simply Christian.
His Post is on the modern church service format, it's intended outcomes and unintended outcomes (the good and bad). He then looks at what might possibly the alternative.
The second is by Nat Gillet where he has started about three real people (with different aliases) who will probably never go to church and may well never meet Jesus. It's an interesting read as there are many people i've met during the course of my life who have and probably will never go to church or be part of a Christian community. At the same time there have been moments when I've been truly amazed at the people who have been welcomed in by churches and become truly integrated there.
anyway I recommended them to the house.
The first is from Andrew Brims, he is a Christian who currently lives in Malaga Spain . I have been referring to him as a missionary out there how I was recently reminded that actually every Christian is in fact actually a missionary in their own location. As such although this title is correct so is simply Christian.
His Post is on the modern church service format, it's intended outcomes and unintended outcomes (the good and bad). He then looks at what might possibly the alternative.
The second is by Nat Gillet where he has started about three real people (with different aliases) who will probably never go to church and may well never meet Jesus. It's an interesting read as there are many people i've met during the course of my life who have and probably will never go to church or be part of a Christian community. At the same time there have been moments when I've been truly amazed at the people who have been welcomed in by churches and become truly integrated there.
anyway I recommended them to the house.
A video update from the Ukraine
Here is a little video of me telling you what i've been up to/what is coming up in the Ukraine.
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