I was happy to start my first semester of English teaching in January and get that hurdle out of the way. I taught four to six English classes a day in forms 5 to 10 (fourth grade to ninth grade). I taught each class group twice weekly, once with their regular teacher and once alone.
It was like teaching in an American school except that the grading system was different, the children’s first language was different and the class schedules and plans were in another language. It was terrifying. Grades, or marks, were taken daily and recorded in a special “journal” that I, as a volunteer, was not allowed to touch. It was a sacred Bible that allowed one color of ink and no white-out.
I taught fifth form to 10th form. There were about 15 to 20 children in a class. Teachers called them pupils in English because ‘student’ refers to university students. Just like school refers to elementary/high school rather than university.
The children love me. I'm new. I'm not their regular teacher. They brought me treats and they said, “Hello Miss Benes!” every time they saw me.
However, they only behaved the first time they saw me. At the next class, all bets were off.
It was a tricky thing, getting up in front of a class when they didn’t know a lot of English. It was overwhelming for both parties. I was completely out of my element and they had no idea what was going on.
I said, “I need a volunteer. Who will be my volunteer?” And I raised my hand and looked at the students expectantly and they looked at each other and at me with wide eyes and then a girl said in Ukrainian. “What do you want the class to do?” So I pointed at a student and said, “Come on up here. You are my volunteer. This is a volunteer.” Demonstration was key. Everything step by step. Later I learned that “volunteer” was a cognate and it was probably my pronunciation that threw them.
I worked with several of the classes for the full two years but I knew maybe six names in each class. Especially the larger classes, it was impossible to keep names straight. They were all Dima and Lena and Olena and Serhiy. It was all in Ukrainian and sometimes the names were difficult to pronounce or they laughed at the way I pronounced them. In the names Ilya, Alya and Olya, the letters ‘lya’ has this extra special emphasis on the way the ‘l’ sound hit the roof of your mouth. I was safer going with acceptable alternatives like Alla or Olga.
I taught the ninth form about America for two weeks. I felt particularly capable of teaching this topic. The ninth form textbooks were by the same author as those we’d first seen in the village. While the nationally-mandated curriculum demanded that teachers spend about 10 lessons on the U.S., the book was lacking. It had short paragraphs titled, “New York,” “The Grand Canyon” and “National Holidays.”
The information on our holidays were two paragraphs and read, “Americans believe that if they work hard they can have what they want and be what they want. This is a part of what they call, ‘The American Dream.’ That is why Americans are so hard-working. They do not take many vacations and there are only five national holidays that are celebrated in every state. These are New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day… There are other holidays, but they are not celebrated in all the states.” It was interesting to read about us from a Ukrainian perspective. All true though.
I wanted to start with a little history so I drew some lovely pictures of a red-haired Columbus with sideburns and three ships that looked like walnut halves with triangles stuck in them. We moved on to history, food, fast food, American customs (I suppose that we like to eat hot dogs at baseball games?), habits (we are a smile-y, handshake-y kind of people), holidays (I played up Halloween and Thanksgiving. Ukrainian children were always anxious to know about Halloween).
A vocabulary word in the ninth form textbook the first week was “haberdashery.” I had heard the word but had no idea what it meant. “Oh, haberdashery.” It sounded like a grandpa thing to say. I gave a lesson on small shops and supermarkets, and this was one of their vocabulary words. After class I asked my counterpart teacher, “What does this mean?” And she explained that it meant accessories like handbags and gloves.
Another time I asked her if the cursive letter in front of me was a cursive F or T. Most of the children were taught to write English in cursive. I have formed the habit of never writing in cursive, so I didn’t even know how to do all the capital letters correctly. It was these little things that made me feel like I should go back to third grade before attempting to teach in a Ukrainian classroom.
Teaching was great at first. The students continued to be wonderful and sweet, and the other English teachers were ready to crack the whip if any of them got out of line. “Many classes want to work with Jessica,” they warned. “She doesn’t have to work with your class.” Which puts the fear of God in them.
My regional manager from Peace Corps came to visit on occasion. Every area of Ukraine was divided into a region by Peace Corps and every region had a manager, so we had someone to take care of our needs, questions and concerns. She traveled to every site to visit school and make sure apartments were suitable.
She sat in on one class to observe me but there wasn’t much to see because the pupils were taking a test that day. At the beginning of class, I did the introductions the way the Ukrainian teacher always did them:
"Good morning class”
“Good morning teacher”
“Who is on duty today?”
“I am on duty today”
“What is the date today?”
“The date is ... the fifth... I mean first of January”
“January?”
“Uh, no, Febr…uary.”
“Thank you, you may sit down." Then I did some warm up questions about the weather. For the start of the test, I read a text in English and they wrote down the days of the week corresponding with the pictures on their sheets of paper.
My manager met with me and the other English teachers, and we discussed everything. They said I worked hard and was a good teacher. Sometimes they would break into rapid fire Ukrainian and I'd be left hoping they were saying only nice things about me. My manager said they were.
She visited my new apartment and wrote down a list of things that should be changed. When she looked around to sit down, I smiled. All I had was one stool and my bed. No chairs, no sofa. I had a bucket, though, which I used sometimes as a second seating place. It was comfortable when you draped a dishtowel over it. She sat on the stool and wrote down that I needed chairs.
At the beginning and at the end of the school year, Ukraine schools had a first and last bell ceremony. The first bell ceremony was to welcome in the new first-formers, and the last bell ceremony was to say goodbye to the 11th form graduates, although they also had a separate graduation ceremony. On Saturday after the last day of school, we gathered at the school for the ceremony at 9 a.m. The 10th formers emceed. The 11th formers paraded out after everyone was assembled. The 11th formers wore huge, puffy pom-pom bows in their hair and the traditional Ukrainian graduation garment. They looked like large 5-year-olds. The first formers also wore these bows when they started school. The director and 10th formers spoke. The director handed out certificates to teachers and pupils, and younger students performed dances.
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