Friday, January 28, 2005

Preparing to Teach

On Saturdays around 40 students (mainly from the cities of Donetsk and Makeevka) converge on campus to learn English. The classes range from beginner to pre-intermediate. I was brave/crazy enough to agree to teach the pre-intermediate class. I have 8 students who are anywhere in the 14-35 age range. They are, for the most part, very motivated to learn English yet getting most of them to talk is sometimes difficult. The premise of the class is that we will spend half of the time conversing and the other half working through grammar.
My background is in teaching, but math is quite different than ESL and over the last few weeks I have often wished I owned “Teaching ESL for Dummies” (to clarify, the students are not the “dummies” most of the time so you can guess who is). Nothing against my high school English teacher (who was the best and was probably my inspiration in choosing the teaching profession) but I have really been struggling with teaching some of the grammar. For the most part I know what sounds right, but I am not able to explain rules (and exceptions) very well. In high school, I told my English teacher that I was going to modify the English language and write a textbook where there were no exceptions. Rules that work most of the time are difficult for a math guy to teach, and preparing for 3+ hours of teaching on Saturday mornings is far more time consuming than I had anticipated. But the students are great and I am happy to help the university earn a little money to pay some of the bills.

Dave

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Second Semester English

My English class of the spring semester has now met once, and I look forward to getting to know my students, Andrei F., Andrei C., Andrei P, Rostislav, Olga and Svetlana, better. They are second year theology students, except for Rostislav, the lone first-year, whose English seems to be quite a bit better than the rest. It’s an interesting group, from what I can gather from the 75 minutes we’ve spent together so far. They come from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakstan. A few are mid-thirties, married with children, the rest are single, in their early twenties.

The basic goal of the class I’m teaching this semester, Exploring Theological English, is to help students become better readers of theological texts. As they continue their education, they will be required to write many papers, and asked to consult English texts as sources. So throughout this course they expand their English theological vocabulary (as I am as well!), learn some reading strategies for tackling texts with lots of big words, and learn some grammar and sentence structures that are commonly found in theological writing.

Although these students have taken a minimum of three English classes at DCU, most of them have difficulty carrying on even simple conversations. This is only the second class I’ve taught, but the blank stares when I begin to speak in English are very familiar. I am the first teacher they have had who does not speak any Russian to them in class. Right now it seems amazing that they can begin this class hardly understanding a word I say, and end up reading and comprehending theological texts that take even a native English speaker a decent amount of concentration to understand. But veteran English teachers here tell me that every semester they think their students will never “get” the material, and every semester they are pleasantly surprised by their students’ level of comprehension at the end of the course.

But though our goal is to make them better readers, this semester I am also focusing on speaking. Many students tell me they want to travel to the U.S. or another English-speaking country, and for that they need practical speaking skills. I have been surprised to find that there are many students who can read and comprehend fairly difficult texts, and score straight A’s on vocabulary quizzes but struggle to understand a simple question about how long they’ll be gone for Christmas break. I completely understand their struggles, as I can’t seem to form one single cohesive sentence in Russian without stuttering and stammering. Hopefully my empathy of their language situation will make me a more effective teacher and will encourage their conversation skills. Right now it’s wait and see.


Laura

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Orange

At present, the political situation seems to be calm. However, one thing that has remained seems to be strange phobias of certain colors affiliated with political parties. In the U.S. the Democratic and Republican parties are loosely affiliated blue and red respectively. Here, there are also political affiliations. The incumbent party is affiliated with blue and the opposition is affiliated with orange but here color affiliations take on a whole new meaning. It seems that the political colors here are more similar to gang colors at home.

Our university has Saturday English classes (I am teaching one of these classes). The advertising is done by hanging flyers with little tear-off strips all over town. When they were getting ready to print the flyers, an administrator went to purchase paper. The only ream that could be purchased was orange. They bought it and printed the advertisments, boasting of learning conversational English by speaking with native speakers. When the group went to hang these flyers around the city, they were repeatedly harrassed by passers-by. They asked if these classes sponsered by "The West" as a way to push its political agenda? Apparently orange was not the right color to use.

A visiting professor told a story of he, his wife, and teenage daughter going to the grocery store and wanting to buy some fish. The clerk only had the typical, Ukrainian, pickled whitefish but the family wanted Salmon. The thing is that their family has always referred to Salmon as "Orangefish." The teenage daughter asked, apparently in rather forceful Russian, "Don't you have any orange fish?" The rest of the store went silent and everyone turned their heads to look and frown in dismay. Apparently she should have used the word for Salmon.

We have heard that, in the west, everyone is wearing some piece of orange clothing. Here it is not a good idea to even have a pattern with small amounts of orange on your underwear. The worst thing is that for several years my favorite color has been orange. I have numerous orange shirts (Laura says that I am "a fall") and brought some along. I wore one a few weeks back and was informed by several friends/acquaintances that it would be best to put it (and others like it) in the back of the closet for a while. I did so reluctantly, but wish the opposition could choose some other color, like fuschia, to represent themselves.

-Dave

Saturday, January 15, 2005

The Restaurant Scene

Over Christmas break, Dave and I decided to indulge our occasional cravings for ethnic food and head to the only Mexican restaurant in town. We were not disappointed by the quality of the food, and enjoyed every bite. The restaurant’s atmosphere took us back to any one of a number of Mexican restaurants in the U.S – the dining room was complete with cacti, sombreros and waitresses wearing brightly colored ponchos. The one disappointment of the evening was the price of the food – quite expensive, even by American standards. Here groceries at the market or grocery store average about 1/4th of what they cost in the states. There are a few exceptions, such as beef, which costs about the same as at home. But eating out is a different story. Eating at restaurants is reserved for the rich and for special occasions for everyone else, if they go at all. We’ve been told that up until a few years ago, restaurants could mostly be found only in hotels in larger cities. Now we see quite a few new restaurants here and there, but eating out is certainly not half as common here as it is at home. Probably because people simply don’t have the money to spend in restaurants.

More common among “regular people” are cafeteria-style eateries, with a wide array of ethnic Ukrainian food – several types of borsch, meats, kasha (grain porridge), salads, and pastries. We’ve found such places to be a great way to sample local cuisine, and they’re also easier on the wallet, one meal averaging around $1.50 or $2. Also very popular as well as quite tasty is what we refer to as “street food,” bought at kiosks along the street, at the market, or beside a large store or shopping complex. Some foreigners are wary of such food, and one should use common sense when looking for a street food snack. But it’s pretty easy to tell which kiosks produce hot, fresh food in clean conditions and which leave something to be desired. And when you find a good kiosk, the food is tasty. Hot dogs, smothered in hot mustard, mayo, shredded cabbage and carrots or pieroshki, deep fried dough pockets filled with meat, potatoes or mushrooms really hit the spot on a cold day spent walking around the city.

Cafes are another popular place to gather, and for the most part, have been unexplored by us. In the few times we’ve gone, we’ve found they offer an array of sweet pastries or sandwiches to go with coffee or tea.

And of course, there’s always McDonalds, the one familiar American chain restaurant that exists in Donetsk. There are four or so in the city, serving the same hamburgers and fries that taste just the same as they do at home. We walk past a McDonalds to get on the bus in the city, and it is always full of people. The people it attracts are, again, better dressed and probably higher class than those who eat at McDonalds in the States. At home it’s a cheap fast-food joint, here it’s a place to spend some time and enjoy the atmosphere, which is a bit fancier and more formal than American McDonalds’ decor. And the place is sparkling clean. I stop there some days to use the bathroom (as clean, free bathrooms are hard to find) and there has always been someone in the restroom, cleaning.

Thus, dining out in the way we’re used to has become as much a treat for us as it is for Ukrainians. Even though we seldom eat at restaurants, there’s no lack of tasty, interesting food to be found in other places.


Laura

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Farewell to a Friend

Before we left for Zaporozhye for the Christmas holiday, we had to say goodbye to our best Ukrainian friend so far – Yegor. For the past semester he has assisted several professors at DCU to fulfill his internship credits needed to complete his degree at Capital Bible Seminary in Washington, D.C. He was the best sort of friend for two newcomers to Ukraine – fluent in both English and Russian, with a native’s knowledge of Ukrainian cultural norms as well as a good grasp of American culture learned from his time spent in the U.S. He played tour guide, showing us around Donetsk, though he had only lived in the area since September. We learned where to get the cheapest prices and best selection of electronic equipment (radio market), where to get great blini (Russian pastries) an enjoy karaoke by the locals (if we were so inclined). In the grocery store he introduced us to new juice varieties, canned fish, pelmeni (bite-sized meat pockets) and delicious cream-cheese filled frozen treats. He took Dave to his first-ever Champions League soccer game, and invited us both to church. He even helped Dave rescue the dessert for our first dinner guests by spending the whole afternoon looking for cream cheese and powdered sugar. He was always willing to take us around, show us the sights or come to our apartment and hang out. We will miss him a lot, and hope that he will come back and visit us someday!

Making friends here is difficult, obviously because of the language barrier, so we really appreciate the people we’ve gotten to know so far, even though all of them speak a fair amount of English. At this point, we simply can’t communicate any other way. People like Yegor, fluent in both languages and cultures, are not that common and we’re grateful to have spent time together. Many of the people we know well are Americans, because we speak a common language. In the future, we will expand our friendships to include monolingual Russian-speakers as well, but sometimes it feels like that time can’t get here fast enough.


Laura

Monday, January 03, 2005

Laid Back and Caring

In my short time here, I have become far more dependent on others than I have been since childhood. I am sure that I am a burden at times and I wish that weren't the case. The trouble is that I just don't know much about what is going on. My Russian is weak so I can't communicate well with the vast majority of the people here. This forces me to rely on a very small group of people for a not-so-small amount of imformation. I appreciate everyone who is patient with me and helps me learn and do things, yet I have found that two attributes are the ones I appreciate the most: being laid back and caring. Many people have demonstrated great deal of both attributes and I am thankful for that.

In my own life, I find that these personality traits are often at odds with each other. I am sometimes too laid-back and put little emphasis on what others around me think is important. At the same time, I am often impatient with others around me for putting so much emphasis on "trivial things" and not caring about the "important things." I guess it is time for me to grow up.

It is funny to think that in the next three years there will be people here who know less than me. They will depend on me for information and I hope to remember this time. Starting today, I will try to be as laid back and caring as I can be.

Dave