On Tuesday, I went with a different group to another university in town. Bless their hearts- they were such troopers! When you teach ESL in a foreign country like Ukraine, you learn a lot about flexibility, BECAUSE your plans frequently change several times before you accomplish your goal (and often, a few times in the midst of accomplishing your goal). Such fun.
During the first class of the day, our team of six was split into two groups, leaving only 3 Americans per class of 20 +. My group ended up with only 2 sets of the activity materials, so they had to juggle "small" groups of about 10-12 people. They handled it like champs, though. They recycled a lesson they had used the day before, because they had a different class that morning.
The second class, however, proved to be a surprise: one of the professors they had worked with the first day decided that he liked their lesson so much, he wanted to bring his class to them again. Good thing they had packed another lesson packet just in case! They had brought along the Transportation lesson plan, which, thankfully, I was already familiar with. While they played an introduction game with the Repeat Class, I went into stealth-mode and organized the materials so that I could casually hand them off to each group member, allowing them to seamlessly transition into the next activity. Score!
The "Repeat Class". The lesson ended up flowing very well, despite the surprise.
Ironically, the English class was held in the German Studies room.
Our third class of the day was just full of challenges to be overcome. We didn't have a room initially, and one of the teachers ended up kicking a large class out of a classroom so that we could have their room. Once inside, there were no markers to be found for the white board. Once one was found, we discovered that it was permanent (of course, this was discovered after the Americans had written their names on the board!). This presented a challenge in how to play Hangman or Jeopardy. While the Americans worked on activities with their small groups, I began MacGyvering a Jeopardy game on the board. I'm including a picture. These were my only supplies: strips of paper and a box of crayons.
The partially-finished Jeopardy board.
Courtney and her group. After they finished their small group activity, Courtney pulled out pictures of her family, which the girls loved.
In the evening, we invited all of the students to come to an English Club event. Whenever we do these events, we try to choose themes that demonstrate some aspect of American culture that Ukrainians may not be familiar with; this year, we chose Mardi Gras (appropriate elements, of course). We played several games, introduced our adaptation of a King Cake, and had a mask-creating competition. After that, Andrei spoke to the group for a while and invited them to return to our other events this week. I'll be posting some details about the actual lessons here.
Katya and her mask.
One of the students wanted some clarification of "Laissez les bon temps rouler," so Brian obliged and wrote it down...on his own arm.
New friends, Uri and Anya.
Micah and his new friend (and Vitaly to the right).
Me and the mask made with a new friend, Leeza.
Showing off the Mardi Gras beads: Zhenya, Vita, Vika, and me.
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