Russia/ Ukraine Face-off

So, there hasn't been (to my knowledge) a Russia/ Ukraine face-off in the past few days. But, there was a face-off in one of our classes.

In several of our lower-level classes this week, we have been teaching a lesson on movies. I'll probably post the lesson plan on my ESL link sometime soon if you want to see exactly what we did, but for the moment, I'll just focus on a game we played. We call this game the "Famous People" game. It the one where you write the name of a famous person (we used all kinds of famous people- not just actors) on a sticker/name tag and put one on each person's back. They then have to ask questions of everyone else to figure out who they are (questions like 'Am I a man?' 'Am I American?' 'Am I an actor?'). It's really fun for the students.

Anyway- we have compiled a list of famous people that most Ukrainians would know. Some are American (Bill Gates, Britney Spears, Brad Pitt, Eminem), some are British (Queen Elizabeth, David Beckham), some are Russian (Vladimir Putin, Anna Kournikova), and some are Ukrainian (Andriy Shevchenko- soccer player, Yushenko- president, and Timoshenko- prime minister). We get a sadistic glee from putting names like 'Queen Elizabeth' and 'Britney Spears' on the backs of the tough guys in the classes. :) Today, in one of our classes, one of the guys was Putin (prime minister of Russia) and one was Yushenko (president of Ukraine). These two political figures do not get along well in real life.

About halfway through the lesson, the students were working in groups, playing a word game. The group with "Putin" somehow aggravated the group with "Yushenko." So, "Yushenko" began mock yelling at "Putin" and asking him why Russia won't give Ukraine natural gas, yada yada. It was soooo funny! They got into character quickly and used it as a way to vent their frustrations at losing the game.

Oh my...good times.