*Disclaimer: the contents, views & information presented in this website are my own and do not represent the Peace Corps, Peace Corps/Ukraine, the US Government, or the Government of Ukraine.
On 9 December 2010, 79 Peace Corps Trainees were sworn-in as Peace Corps Volunteers in Kyiv, Ukraine. I was lucky enough to be one of those 79. After Group 40 swears in this week, there will be over 400 Peace Corps Volunteers serving in Ukraine. So exciting! It’s hard to believe training is over and we are finally at our sites. It seems just recently that we were sitting in language class for four hours a day learning Ukrainian grammar. Though I will miss my cluster- and link-mates and other friends, I’m excited to officially start my service as a PC Volunteer.
The Swearing-In Conference was three whirlwind days of excitement, socializing, and informational meetings. We were given our permanent site placements, met our regional managers/region buddies/counterpart teachers, and learned about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Ukraine. Here are a few pictures:
Me with my friends Julie and James
Janira (far R) and I with our counterparts! My counterpart is Galyna, the tiny blond in the middle.
My cluster and our link cluster. From R, back row first: James, Phillip, Chris, Andy, Andrew, Andrew; Kate, Janira, me, Michelle
So where am I now, you may ask? I’ve ended up in the Ivano-Frankivska Oblast (an oblast is like a state) near the border of the Chernivets’ka Oblast in SW Ukraine. My town is a rayon (region) center of 15-20,000 people and I live in the center of town in a beautiful apartment. I’m the first PCV in my town. My counterpart, Galyna – the Ukrainian English teacher with whom I will primarily work – is 21 years old, recently married, and totally great. She and I are really enthusiastic about the next two years. The day I got to site I went to school and met the other English teachers – a range of ages and experiences, but all friendly, funny, and welcoming people. I’ll be observing classes for the next few weeks and will start teaching after the holidays. On Monday I was officially introduced and welcomed (in)to the school community – the English pupils of the 8th and 9th Forms gave presentations about Ukrainian places/traditions/food and their knowledge of the U.S. There were also some dance and song performances. I was presented with flowers, a traditional/ceremonial Ukrainian loaf of bread (Каравай), and a book about my town! The director of the school said some words of welcome and I attempted to respond and introduce myself briefly in Ukrainian. The pupils’ English was very strong.
Loot from presentation at school: book, flowers, Каравай bread, & of course leftover cookies & candy.
After the hour-long presentation the English teachers, school director, and vice principals swept me off to what will be “my” classroom – for another hour of wine/tea/fruit/cookies/sandwiches/candy and Ukrainian conversation. The director speaks no English and is proud of her status as Ukrainian – as she should be – so I am hopeful that my Ukrainian will continue to improve if I talk to her a lot. They are all wonderful people and I feel so lucky to be in such a community for the next two years.
I taught my first TEFL class this week! 8th Form (grade), by myself for 45 minutes on the climate of Great Britain. Introduced some new words like “rainfall,” “sunshine,” “climate,” “wind,” “humid,” “mild,” “average.” I also tried to teach the pupils about comparatives and superlatives. Parts of the lesson worked – they loved the “word swatter” game – and parts were addressed to complete silence. Overall, it wasn’t too shabby for a first lesson but there is much room for improvement.
In Ukrainian language we’ve moved from the food unit to time and weather. Learning ordinal numerals; how to ask for/tell time; days of the week and months of the year; names for weather phenomena. Friday was a beautiful sunny (сонце) and warm (тепло) day! Also interesting is that in Ukrainian the months are named after things that happen in those months:
January (січень) loosely means “heavy snow”
February (лютий) means “angry month”
March (березень) is the bird month
April (квітень) is the month when flowers come out
May (травень) is when grass is green
June (червень) is when cherries blossom
in July (липень) the linden trees bloom
August (серпень) is harvest month
heather comes out in September (вересень)
October (жовтень) is the “yellow month”
November (листопад) is “falling leaves month”
December (гпудень) is “frozen ground month”
Language class is a fun mix of review from the previous day and new material practiced through games, dialogues, and repetition. As usual, more “daily life in Ukraine” pictures below.
My Cluster! L to R: Tammela, Kate, Andy, Janira, Andrew
Kate and I unconsciously dressed in opposite color schemes for our first day of teaching!
Beautiful fall day in Chernihiv.
My host family's garden and chickens!
Grapes in the late afternoon. Host dog, Dina, bottom left.
Today, September 8, is International Literacy Day. Here's the blurb from the UN website:
Literacy is a cause for celebration since there are now close to four billion literate people in the world. However, literacy for all – children, youth and adults - is still an unaccomplished goal and an ever moving target. A combination of ambitious goals, insufficient and parallel efforts, inadequate resources and strategies, and continued underestimation of the magnitude and complexity of the task accounts for this unmet goal. Lessons learnt over recent decades show that meeting the goal of universal literacy calls not only for more effective efforts but also for renewed political will and for doing things differently at all levels - locally, nationally and internationally.
So today, I hope everyone reads and/or writes something, however small. Or read to someone -- spread the joys and benefits of literacy.
Luckily for me, I leave in 9 days for a country with the 22nd highest literacy rate in the world: Ukraine's literacy rate is 99.4%, according to Index Mundi. That's higher than the United States' 99% (ranked 35th). While some Ukrainians are literate in Russian and some in Ukrainian, what really matters is how high that percentage is: it reflects how the country values education, which bodes well for me as an English-teaching Peace Corps Volunteer.
In other news, I finished Anna Reid's Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine and learned a lot about Ukraine's history through the mid 1990s. I feel better prepared, knowing a bit of what Ukraine has experienced in its long haul toward independence. Also, I leave in 9 days and today will start packing -- it might take 5 tries to fit 2 years of my life into 2 suitcases...though some current volunteers say that we really won't need the spring/summer clothing during training.
Since I will be teaching English in Ukraine, one of the most important things will be to learn about the Ukrainian education system before I'm dumped into it. Of course I'll learn about it during Pre-Service Training, but starting now won't hurt!
Good news: the literacy rate in Ukraine is almost 100%! Incredible. And, Ukraine produces the fourth largest number of academic graduates in all of Europe (see diagram). Much like the U.S., there are four levels of schooling in Ukraine: primary, secondary, higher & postgraduate. Schools get half their funding from the city budget & half from the national government budget. Twelve years of school (shkola, or школа), beginning at age 6, are mandatory in Ukraine. Students pass through "younger" (grades 1-4), "middle" (grades 5-9), and "senior" (grades 10-12) schools. In grade 12 students take Independent Government Tests (IGTs) for entrance into university. It looks like students begin studying a foreign language in 5th grade, so maybe my secondary EFL students will already have a decent grasp on English. Regardless, Ukrainians clearly value education. Secondary schools use a 12-point grading scale, which looks like it roughly corresponds to our letter-grading: 12 = A+ 11 = A 10 = A- 9 = B+ 8 = B 7 = B- 6 = C+ 5 = C 4 = C- 3 = D+ 2 = D 1 = D- (Fail)
Now, on a totally different note, some information on health in Ukraine. Though I'll be primarily an English teacher, I may be -- hopefully! -- running workshops on health and wellness. As of a few years ago, Ukraine was in a demographic decline: high death rate (16.3/1,000) + low birth rate (11/1,000) = population decline. Apparently a lot of working-age males are dying from alcohol poisoning and smoking. Also, Ukraine has one of the highest rates of increasing HIV/AIDS cases in Eastern Europe. Education, awareness, and condoms, people!
Two months from tomorrowI depart for my staging -- a couple days in the US to get acquainted with my group and take care of last-minute stuff -- and then for Ukraine on September 19th with my fellow Ukraine Groupe 39-ers! Wowzers. I started studying Ukrainian today and it's tough! I think once I learn the Cyrillic alphabet (abetka) it will get easier.
So I thought you might be curious as to what I will be doing in Ukraine for 27 months -- this post will reveal what I know so far:
My job title is Secondary Education TEFL Teacher. The Peace Corps TEFL program was launched in September 1993, with the goal of expanding and improving the quality of English instruction in schools and at teacher-training institutions. So this means I'll be teaching English -- conversational, communicative methodology, U.S. history/culture, American/British literature -- to students ages 8-17. I will teach a minimum of 18 hours/week, made up of 6-9 classes with 12-28 students each. In addition to my teaching duties, I may be involved in developing English teaching materials and curriculum for my school, leading workshops on approaches to language teaching, and assisting with English development among my (Ukrainian) colleagues.
But those are just in-school activities... Secondary to my school-teaching will be work on community projects. These may include workshops on any number of things: healthy lifestyles, HIV/AIDS awareness, drug/alcohol prevention, multicultural awareness, ecology, journalism. I may lead English conversation clubs or educational activities at orphanages. The options seem endless! The most important thing that my assignment materials remind me of is that I will be part of a long-term development project. There won't be quick fixes. But success often comes from a series of small changes.
So are they just going to throw me into a classroom right off the bat, you may ask? Nope -- that's where Pre-Service Training (PST) comes in. We -- Ukraine Group 39, I think we're all incoming TEFL teachers -- will spend the first three months in and around Kyiv with host families, taking part in intense training, of which there are five components: technical training, language training, cross-cultural training, health training, and safety/security training. We will work in our communities to apply/develop our skills and experience, learn about Ukraine (economy, politics, education), study Ukrainian or Russian, and learn preventative health maintenance and safety measures. Halfway through PST we will get our site assignments -- the place/project we will be with for the next 24 months! It could be anywhere in the country. Exciting times are ahead...
As a parting thought I leave you this video (below) showcasing the sights of Kyiv, with a pretty rockin' soundtrack. Enjoy!
(Information courtesy of my Peace Corps/Ukraine Welcome Book and Peace Corps Assignment pamphlet. Video courtesy of YouTube.)
Hi everyone! As many of you know, I graduated from Oberlin College in May 2010 and spent much of the spring semester applying, interviewing and filling out medical forms in hopes of joining the Peace Corps. On July 8, I received an official "invitation to serve"! So, on September 17 I will embark on an exciting 27 months of teaching secondary English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in Ukraine. This blog will help me keep in touch with all of you, as I will post information on Ukraine culture/politics/history/religion/food as well as my experiences once my service begins. Hope you’ll stay in touch!
