A General update 30/09/2010

Well it's been a while since I last blogged and for good reason, the work days have definitely become more hectic and require much more forward planning. Most days I now have a morning lesson and then evening/afternoon lessons and as such have very little time to plan lessons during the day (meaning that Friday and a bit of Saturday are becoming necessary lesson planning time). When the lack of internet at the flat is factored in then the hour between lessons on Thursday morning and regular Sunday mid afternoon trip  the coffee shop are the only chance I can get. The plus side is that I am definitely getting quicker at planning lesson and some of my recent assessments have brought up some very good feedback. I have a good level of being fun but firm with teenagers (I introduced them to Bombay bicycle club yesterday) and my ability to adapt at a moments notice was again brought up when I forgot a listening exercise for a business lesson.

We have managed to discover a very local and very realistic English паб that actually has darts, table football, shows football on the tv and does and English breakfast and fish and chips. although I am yet to sample these culinary delights I am hoping they will both be culinary and delightful. We first visited it on Friday when one of the other teachers and I went to watch the basketball with a couple of my pre-int students (one of whom worked at the basketball arena) Dniproazot played pretty well, however Kyiv were just a much better team.

During the rest of the weekend the other international teachers spent time introducing our newest member (neil) to Dnipro including going to the air rifle range where I managed to get the highest score (somehow) and sampling the wonders that are sharoma (a sort of kebab with chips inside that is worryingly addictive). On Monday evening I invited several of the other teachers around and we all had a very large risotto (though not quite large enough for the number of teachers that were present unfortunately). This was my attempt at bringing and element of "the well" to Dnipro and was gratefully received even if it wasn't exactly the same.

the only other news since Monday is that I have successfully managed to send a video message back to someone in England (took ages to shrink the video down to a suitable size) and I have also received my first item of post from the uk (thank you Zoe Allen). now I must dash for my next lesson.

This is Agent Wilson signing off.

Multi-Lingual blogging day.

I found out about this event recently via Lib Dem Voice and thought I would give it a go in Russian...However it has quickly become apparent that my level of Russian still has a very long way to go and so what I actually do end up posting in Russian will be very basic (and not including this pre-amble that has used such words as "pre-amble" that I simple do not know. I Could cheat and use babel fish/google translate but I feel that would defile the point of the exercise slightly.) So without further a do my Multi-lingual Blog post....

Привет из Украины, меня зовут Крис Уилсон и я живу в Украине в течение месяца сейчас. Это очень интересная страна, полная прекрасных людей. Хотя на первых людей лоскутных холодной я узнал, они очень открытые и помощь с моей плохой русский язык.Жизнь в другой стране может быть очень трудно, но очень хорошо, как хорошо, Есть всегда новые впечатления, и они лучше с хорошими друзьями. Я люблю еда здесь, но это потребуется время, чтобы привыкнуть к, и я люблю погоду (но она будет меняться).


[Translation]

Hello from the Ukraine, My name is Chris Wilson and I have been living in the Ukraine for a month now. It is a very interesting country full of wonderful people. Although at first people seamed cold I learnt they are very open and help with my bad Russian.
Living in another country can be very hard but very good as well, there are always new experiences and they are better with good friends. I love the food here, but it did take time to get use to, and I love the weather (but it will change).

Some pictures from outdoor Salsa next to the Dnipro

As promised I actually took some pictures from the outdoors salsa that goes on next to the Dnipro river in Dnipropetrovsk. Unfortunately I believe this is the last for the some time (I can't be certain as my Russian still isn't great) as the weather has definitely started to drop. It was a great way to go out with a live band and all the local salsa clubs there (there was definitely a noticeable increase in standard)

A revealing lesson

On Wednesday I was teaching my pre-intermediate teenagers and we were looking at hobbies and interests. One of the more interesting questions was "does anyone have a hobby that could become a profession, after all if they say yes to this then it would show that they must really be interested in this hobby and probably spend a fair bit of time doing this activity. One student revealed they were a keen swimmer and another that she was a strong dancer. When I asked what type of dancing she was interested in I at first heard "street dancing" assuming she meant urban type dancing I was quite surprised out of all the girls in my class (all around 15-17) I would have guessed that if this student was into dancing it would be more traditional dancing. However the rest of my students had switched into Russian and were clearly asking a lot of questions and it was at this point I discovered  that actually she hadn't said street dancing...but strip dancing.
You never know what you will find out about your students

Ukrainian Political Posters: Aleksandr Vilkul

Following on from my previous post with a Ukrainian political post I thought I'd show you another one. this time belonging to Aleksandr Vilkul