December 1: Dear TEFL 41ers: Please take the post-PST survey I e-mailed out.I really want 100% participation! It is anonymous, so be as honest as you want :)
So back in June at our Swearing-In Conference, I was elected the Group 41 Training Advisory Group representative for TEFL. This basically means that I have a hand in designing and helping to improve Pre-Service Training (PST), In-Service Trainings (IST), Language Refreshers, and PST University by working with the PC Ukraine staff. One of the responsibilities of a TAG rep is to put out a survey 6 months after swearing-in for those they represent. The purpose is to assess the quality of training they received and how it relates to their experiences now.
December 2: I have spent the last five hours talking to the guy that came to tell me something about the gas line in my apartment. It was a nice opportunity to practice my Russian (which is so not up to par) and meet a cute local.
It also included a good amount of using my dictionary and Google Translate!
December 3: And today I shall bake my first ever pie!
It was Dutch Apple all from scratch and it was sooooo good!
December 7: Today my counterpart asked me if the guy I talked to for a few hours last week has come by yet. When I said no, she asked me to give her the thing I was given regarding my apartment's gas to look for his name in it. She found it and said "We'll Google it and find him." Lilly is on a mission!
Googling people is not just for Americans.
December 8: I just realized how awesome it is to not be plagued by holiday music. Thank freaking goodness.
In other news: Will be watching Vampire Diaries with 10th form tomorrow. Yay for practicing listening skills.
December 10: Laundry day. Ew. Why do I put it off so much?!
Seriously though. I hated doing laundry in the states with the aide of a washing machine and dryer, so doing it all by hand after putting it off as long as possible makes it a huge task that I dread. It isn't made better by the fact that it is freezing cold outside which causes my clothes to freeze. I typically would choose a few things I wanted to dry quickly and use my space heater to do so (DANGER!), and hang the other stuff in my bathroom or kitchen. That is a whole other ordeal since the wet clothes make my bathroom smell funny. Oh laundry...
December 15: Well, since it had been raining everyday since doing my laundry on Saturday, it is finally time to dry my socks and undies on my PC heater. Pancake.
See?! Pain in the butt! Also, the use of the word "pancake" is being used as "darn" because in Russian the word they use is блин ("bleen") for "darn" which translates to English as "pancake!"
 |
| It is like this in Ukraine, too. |
Grading is a funny thing in Ukraine. There tends to not be a rubric for things and even things graded on a point scale seem to be flexible depending on how much the student begs the teacher. This kind of drives me nuts since I think that students need to be held accountable and be given grades they actually earned rather than grades they/teachers/parents think they should have earned. I am working on getting the English teachers at my school on board with this, but it is a slow going battle. I have made a little leeway though and get happy to be able to dock students for cheating, which a huge problem here.
December 21: In my search to find annoying effing sounds to put on my iPod (so that my counterpart and I can drive them as nuts as they drive us), I discovered the "Mosquito" sound. The 8th formers will hate us and it will be glorious.
Basically 8th form is the worst grade in the school in terms of noise, motivation, and manners. They are always loud in class and are nearly impossible to get quiet, let alone teach. I simply made it my mission to try to annoy them as much as they can annoy the teachers.
December 26: My bed is gradually breaking...
I sleep on a couch that pulls out into a bed. Somewhere in its lifetime, a hole appeared in the plywood that lays underneath the cushions. Over time, it gradually got larger and larger. In this time, I began sleeping in a slight dip to a small hole, to a mini crater. Thankfully it has been fixed.
December 31: It's NYE? Oh.. I guess I will commence with my Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon.
In Ukraine, NYE is celebrated like Americans celebrate Christmas combined with how we celebrate New Year's. I didn't do anything and even fell asleep before midnight only to be woken up by midnight fireworks outside of my window.
No comments:
Post a Comment