What I actually do in the Peace Corps, a list.

It is a well known fact that a lot of my time is spent watching Glee, singing very loudly to showtunes and making my apartment smell tasty with baked goods. However, for those interested in finding out that I’m actually doing as far as my official Peace Corps assignment goes, this entry is for you. Hopefully you will gain some insight as to what I am actually doing in Ukraine.

Teaching English
English Clubs
Pen Pals
Teaching Seminars
Reading Library
Resource Center

Teaching English.
The school I work at is a specialized school. All across Ukraine, kids are learning English in school, usually starting at 4th or 5th grade and having lessons 2-3 times a week. At my school, the pupils start learning English when they come to daycare on the weekends. The first official lessons begin in 1st grade, and continue up until they graduate. They have lessons 3-4 times a week through 4th grade and in 5th grade they start having 5 English lessons a week. I teach 4, 5, and 7 form English classes. Each class is divided into groups of between 8-15 students and I have each group 2 times a week. I also teach English/American literature and culture to 10th graders twice a week. According to the national curriculum, there are certain topics that are to be taught, so those are the guidelines I follow. Depending on the teacher, I get more structure as to planning, but alot of them just hand me the reins and take notes while I teach. I generally don’t team-teach, although the teachers of each group are usually in the room with me. This helps with general discipline because when I scold the kids in Russian, they usually laugh at me.

The 4th form is a very energetic bunch that tends to be off the walls. Most days they are thrilled to see me. When I go to collect them and take them to the classroom I often hear “Elise is with our group today, HA!” and see a few tongues stuck out at each other. We are still practicing a lot of vocabulary with this group, so I get to play lots of games. The 5th graders are a really bright group. They’re used to working with me, so we can be super productive. Some of the girls are wildly affectionate, and of course the boys are troublemakers, but they’re unbelievably sweet and receptive to learning. Teaching 7th grade is a little tougher because of the stark differences in language levels. We worked together last year though, and it shows. They’re getting used to giving their opinions all the time and my insistence on not speaking Russian during the lessons. Some of the kids are getting to a point of “too cool for school”, but when they see the other kids happily playing games and getting along with me during lessons they come around. They are often a breath of fresh air during the school day, because I can speak only English with them and don’t have to chase them to get them in their seats. The 10th form…I really like the subject matter that I get to teach. It’s a challenge this year because the specialized and non-specialized groups were combined into one big class. So I have pupils who can translate Shakespeare sonnets beautifully and discuss literature, and pupils who can’t translate a 7th grade text in the same group. I’m designing the curriculum myself for the literature class, and that has been really fun. Although this group might not really enjoy my lessons on Thoreau, Twain, and Poe – all the groups to come will benefit from the materials.
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English Clubs.
I have 3 English clubs each week. One for 4-5 graders, one for 6-8 graders, and one for 9-11 graders. The most popular one is for the young learners, partly because they have to stay after school anyway until their parents come and get them. That group is primarily an interest group. We aren’t wildly productive, but I just want them to enjoy speaking English and learning new things about a different culture. We do lots of drawings, sing songs, and play more vocabulary games than I can think of. They’re full of questions about Americans and love learning about different traditions. The middle school group consists of a ton of hyperactive sixth graders. They don’t have official lessons with me, and are usually super stoked to come. A few bright 5th graders and 2-3 7th graders come too. We choose a topic each week and have a variety of activities related to it. It’s usually a brainstorm activity, followed by a vocabulary game, and then multiple speaking activities. I’ve found that it’s still really hard for the students I don’t work with regularly to understand me, so sometimes things get out of hand. It’s enjoyable though, and good practice for them to speak in a casual setting without worrying about mistakes. They made up their own rules and goals, so I try to enforce rules with the hopes that we achieve those goals. The oldest students’ group is a conversation group. It’s not very popular. Once I can convince more than 2 students to come, maybe we will do exciting things.
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Pen Pals.
My 7th graders are pen pals with some 7th and 8th graders back home in Ohio. I was lucky enough to find a middle school teacher who volunteered her students to start this project. We began the year with lessons on writing letters and eventually I brought the first batch home with me when I went to Katie’s wedding. They received replies at the beginning of November. That was a very exciting day. We sent off letters on Thanksgiving Day and have been anxiously waiting to find out if they made it to America. I’m quite concerned, as several of my letters to the homeland have never arrived. They ask just about every day when we will get letters back, and it breaks my heart to say “I hope before the New Year!” In order to make our letters interesting, we practice asking and answering questions everyday. Each lesson begins with a question on the board, like “What is your favorite dish and why?” “What is your favorite memory from childhood?” “Who is your hero?” They write down the question and answer it. Other than having an interesting list of questions, I’m hoping that they will gain confidence in their opinions and realize that their thoughts have merit.
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Teaching Seminars.
A big part of what I do is teach using the Communicative Method. Typical English as a foreign language classes here and taught primarily with reading and writing being main focus. My school is very receptive to new ideas and my colleagues are very interested in learning new activities to make teaching interesting and engaging for the students. At our first seminar, I invited 2 other volunteers, and we presented 1.5 hours of activities – everything from debates, to the Itsy-Bitsy Spider, to using Venn Diagrams. We realize that although we’re not teachers by degree, we have a lot of ideas and lots of resources at our disposal. By holding teaching seminars, I’m able to gauge the desires and demands of my English Department and provide information. It is helpful for volunteers as well, because we get to learn new ways to teach as well. Hearing feedback (or even just seeing their response) helps me to know which activities are more applicable, and how Ukrainians themselves adapt them for their pupils. I’ve participated in 2 other seminars, and plan on hosting 2-3 more before the school year ends.
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Reading Library
This project is very close to my heart. My students (or at least their parents) really want to learn English. But, they have no books to read in English. After talking to my family about this, I came up with the idea of getting book donations to start a reading library at my school. To get started, I applied for and received books from Darien Book Aid. This organization is really neat – I received a box of books absolutely free for my school, with no strings attached. We placed the books (there were about 30) in the library.  Then, my stepdad, Terry, led the way in collecting and shipping me about 60 more children’s books. They were a huge hit, and when I checked the library this week, all but 10 books had been checked out.

I just received an email last week that we will soon be receiving a box of books from the International Book Project. This organization works through donations. They collect books, and when enough donations are received and allocated to me, they ship the books out. I’m very excited for this, because there is opportunity to receive a lot of materials for my students. At the next teaching seminar my Ukrainian colleague, Lena, and I will present ways to incorporate childrens’ literature into the curriculum. We also want to have regular book reports and projects assigned. If we can get our hands on a class set, we’d even like to have a book club. My goal is to collect at least 500 books for our students. This will ensure that we’ll have books at all levels, from first through eleventh, and a wide variety for students and teachers to choose from.
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Resource Center
A few months back, my director told Lena and me that room 22 would become the English Room. My mom bought us many posters and decorations to put on the walls in order to make the space more inviting and give it an educational atmosphere. Right now, the English department and I are in the first baby steps of writing a Partnership Grant to get materials for our department. (A Partnership Grant is funded through donations) What we want to do is create a station of teaching manuals, teacher editions of good quality textbooks, activity books, dictionaries, thesauruses, and other resources available for all of our teachers. Right now, the only materials the teachers have are outdated state-issued textbooks that are irrelevant and rife with mistakes. We are lucky to have a large foreign language department – about 10 teachers – but many of the teachers have to spend their own money to get materials. (The wages for teachers here are hardly livable. I manage to do it – but I also don’t have rent to pay or a family to feed.) Having a variety of materials means that lessons will be more interesting, relevant and productive. We are also looking to buy several CD players and lots of different CDs of childrens’ and pop songs in English. Once we buy the supplies, we will keep them in the English Room as our small Resource Center. This project is still in the works, but it is something I’m really looking forward to. As it progresses, I will be sure to update about it. Eventually it will be up on the Peace Corps website, and I’ll be begging everyone and anyone to help fund the grant.
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