A quiet week

[Interestingly if I had changed two letters in that sentence (Quite a week) then the Blog post would have a completely different meaning to the one that it actually does. Isn't the English language fun!]

As you may have noticed there has been a distinct lack of blogging this past week. This was due to a variety of reason. The start of the month hails the start of lesson observations again and all the joy that brings. Don't get me wrong I am extremely grateful for the observations and I am certain they are a great help to grow as a teacher and improve on the areas that I am struggling with.

As per usual instructions came up as a major point of discussion, although it was noted that I am improving a lot here and picking up when students haven't understood a lot quicker. In addition it was pointed out that I need to make sure my tone is actually one that is telling people off when I am telling them off! And finally it isn't always best to tell people off for using L1, sometimes we have to encourage them to try and use English as they are embarrassed/unconfident.

All in all some good things to work on and I hope to take them on board very quickly.

Other than this the week has been pretty quiet, the only real events of note are the non stop salsa party last night (where if you danced with the most people you got free entry to the next one, I came second somehow!) and the ice skatting today...speaking of which I must go.

Hopefully I will blog a bit more in the coming week but until then I am about to post a link to some articles on L1 in the class room... the good and bad.

Some more salsa and fireworks

Last night Me and my fellow partner in crime manage to get one of the other teachers (hereby referred to as Scottish Chris [so as to distinguish him from myself]) to join us in some outside Salsa. I have never seen this in England yet it seams to be very common here in the Ukraine as this group does it every Sunday evening and as I walked home I came across another salsa club that was still going as I came back.

I was impressed by how quickly Scottish Chris went from making many many excuses for not being able to attend next week to starting to learn the basic steps and then even dancing with various different partners!

After a few hours of dancing the fireworks to celebrate the founding of the city started and all eyes turned to the bridge crossing the river. It was a very impressive display that had meant the bridge had been closed off all day to set up for the 15 minute display. (that's 15 minutes of fire works pretty much all along the kilometre long bridge going off.)

The result of all this was that by the end of the evening me and John and convinced Scottish Chris that not only was Salsa good fun, that he should (and would) come along to the next evening group but we had also assisted the male female balance at the salsa club. Which isn't too bad seeing as we had only been once before.

They might not do Mexican food but they do Salsa!

Not knowing many people out here in the Ukraine and there being a lack of the typical ways to meet people that I have been use to from growing up in England can make weekends occasionally repetitive and boring, leading to the anticipation of returning to work and having lessons to teach being greater than it might otherwise be. However this weekend was different as for the first time in my life, I donned a nice shirt (that has occurred plenty of times before), headed to the riverside, and (after beating my British reserve into submission) did some salsa dancing for the first time. 

When I was first invited I knew that it would take me a while to actually dance but that once I started I would really enjoy it. The fact that the whole affair began with an outdoor session really did not help things. However within an hour the sun had set, the street lights dimly lit the area and most of the passers by no longer stopped and stared but hurried by to get to whatever destination they were scurrying along to.

By the time I had been taught the basics (moving forward and backwards in time to the music) the actually dance classes were ready to begin and we had moved inside to a local bowling alley that also happened to have a sizeable dancing area next to it. At this point I was ready to start learning the part that I was most looking forward to, being able to spin my partner round and even attempting a spin myself. 

There was an element of year 6 disco during the periods when it was up to the guys to go up to one of the, many, women in the room and ask them to dance. If I had been fluent in  Russian and an experienced salsa dancer then I wouldn't have felt too comfortable with this, but after bucking up some pride (and being warned of the consequences of not dancing with someone by the time by fellow teacher John returned from...well the john) I had asked a fairly proficient English speaker to dance and she had helpfully guided my steps.

The absolute highlight of the evening was the instructor teaching people to do the samba. I decided not to take part as trying to understand Russian instructions and not being able to see what was going on was hard enough and I greatly appreciated this decision after witnessing the truly amazing nature of the dance (from a distance)! This obviously would not have been so had I taken part (maybe I will one day when I can understand a bit more russian...and actually dance a bit too)

The whole affair cost 40 UAH which is somewhere between £3-4 and lasted 3 hours. The outside dancing was completely free and went on for a couple of hours before hand and takes place every Sunday evening. In fact me and John are going along to it tonight and plan to then watch the fireworks that are occurring afterwards as part of the Dnipro day celebrations. I will try and get some picture and post them up.