Continuing with my experience during Pre-Service Training…
Aside from learning Russian, a more important task was learning how to teach. The mission of Peace Corps states that only trained people will be sent overseas, but in the case of English teachers nearly all of us had no substantial teaching experience. And to be honest, in my ignorance I did not think there was that much training required for teaching at the secondary level. But I was wrong. Thanks to the incredible training staff at Peace Corps, in three months I learned how to design lesson plans, present and practice difficult materials, and communicate despite an enormous language gap.
But first, let me give some background on the school at which I taught. When I first saw the building, I thought I was in a rich suburb of Southern California. The building was new and freshly painted pink. There were at least four computer rooms and a language room with brand new equipment. All students wore impressively neat suits and dresses and girls wore white poofs in their hair the size of their heads. Is this really the type of school that Peace Corps sends people? But soon after we started observing classes, I saw room for improvement. In all subjects, many of the teachers just read from the book and the little drilling used was completely ineffective. Most of these teachers cared for their students, but from an American viewpoint the creative components that I used to take for granted were painfully absent. Hence even though we trainees did not have formal training, we innately incorporated interactive and creative styles in our teaching.
The most critical skill I learned in training was lesson planning. I was taught to create feasible and measurable objectives for each lesson, such as “students will be able to create a dialogue of six sentences using the new vocabulary.” Also, Peace Corps uses the P3 method of teaching: presentation, practice, and production. For presentation, the teacher presents the material, vocabulary or grammar, and uses visual aids and gestures to demonstrate meaning across the language gap. For practice, students use the new material in creative ways that emphasizes speaking and interaction. For example, I create games or activities such as ball tosses, relay races, or board games that force the students to speak the whole time and use the new material. All these games must directly serve the objectives of the class, which is executed in production. In this last phase, students make a dialogue or a text or answer questions without notes and without my help. This tests what they have learned that day and requires them to use it unassisted. Lesson planning takes a long time because the themed chapters I am supposed to teach are extremely eclectic and making visual aids and game pieces is also time consuming.
The most important part of training was of course, teaching. I must admit I was nervous about standing up in front of fifteen perhaps unruly children and trying to communicate without any Russian. I thought I was going to hate teaching for at least the first year. But after the first minute at the board, I became exhilarated! Although the production of my first lesson was a crash and burn, my second was executed very well and I have since got the hang of it. I now love teaching, though I will not make it my profession. In the five weeks that I taught in Uzunagach, I saw amazing progress! Instead of spending the whole 45 minutes not saying a word in English, students actually were excited as they tried to form sentences and even after class they were eager to speak. I was told by one teacher that she was shocked that some kid actually volunteered to demonstrate a dialogue in class because he always refused to speak.
However, there have been some difficulties, especially in team-teaching. Since a goal of Peace Corps is to make sure most of what the volunteers contribute is sustainable, we teach English with local English teachers. This exposes these teachers to different teaching styles. But sometimes these teachers aren’t interested or misinterpret what you say. My favorite example is when I taught a lesson on being fit and I asked my counterpart to translate “I am fit” and she translated it as “I am fat.” For the next ten minutes, students were confused at how activities like weight-lifting and running makes you fat.
In addition to teaching English, I also ran English clubs. The English club was an informal forum to speak in English and learn about American culture. Since their English levels were very low, club was limited to singing songs and playing games. But it got students interested in English. I guess the goal of these clubs is to find a small group of interested students who will be able to discuss ideas in English and actually prepare them for a future that will involve these skills. For the other students, it is just fun and might improve their performance in class.
But one of the most rewarding components of teaching (and well being an American) is the immense popularity. Yes, that sounds shallow. But when you have children constantly yelling your name and some random English words or phrases and crowds always around you, it is impossible to not feel happy and eager to work. Maybe it is because I have never been this popular at school, but I think it is good that these kids look up to me because that will make them more interested in learning English.
That is basically the end of my pre-training service in Uzunagach saga and my next entry will be about my life in Balkhash, which for the past three weeks have been great!
Friday, November 30, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
Horses and Cannibals
It has taken exactly three months, but I finally decided to sum up what I have been doing in the middle of nowhere Kazakhstan. I am currently at my permanent site of Balkhash where I will be an English teacher with the United States Peace Corps for the next two years. But before I talk about that, I should explain what I have been doing since I arrived in Almaty on August 23, 2007.
For the past three months, I was in Pre-Service Training (PST). This is the period where Peace Corps trainees are placed in a village with around ten other Americans and you learn all the skills you will need for the next two years. This includes language training, teaching training, and cultural training. In addition to studying the language—primarily Russian, but also Kazakh—we taught classes, ran English clubs, held teacher workshops, and came up with and executed a secondary community project. In short, it was an extremely hectic three months and although it felt like forever, now that I am at my permanent site it seems like PST lasted only a week.
For PST, I was placed in the Kazakh (meaning over 75% Kazakh) village of Uzunagach. The village is a bit over an hour from Almaty, the former capital and still commercial center of Kazakhstan. Uzunagach is a pleasant place with around 30,000 people and though it is called a village, it had more of a suburban feel. The main strip of the town is very typical of a Kazakhstani town and village. There is a monument to the local hero, Karasay Batir; the akemat (local government); an enormous building for the education department; the “Culture House;” WWII, or Great Patriotic War as it is known here, monument with eternal flame; and further down the bazaar, the post office, and KazTelecom. Nine other Americans were placed in Uzunagach (one later dropped out) and we were split into two groups and were placed into different schools. In these groups, we learned Russian and worked on projects, but all eight of us became very close.
Although I was technically located in Uzunagach, I actually lived in a much smaller village outside called Jana Khurlus, which is 30 minutes away by foot. Jana Khurlus is an interesting place. The name apparently means “New York” in Kazakh—Jana means New and Khurlus means…York??? Everyone told me this and unfortunately my Russian and certainly my Kazakh were not at a level where I could get a straight answer about how this is possible. Jana Khurlus also has a high population of Chechens. I should mention here that Kazakhstan is a heterogeneous country. Only 60% of the population is Kazakh, around 30% is Russian, and the rest is German, Ukrainian, Korean, Chechen, or other Turkic—Uzbek, Uigher, Karakalpak, Turk, Tatar. Most of the peoples, including the Chechens, were put in Kazakhstan under Stalin to keep them from being disruptive.
In Jana Khurlus, I lived with a Kazakh family in what felt like a farmhouse. Although they were one of the poorer families with which an American was residing, it was definitely not what I expected. It was decently spacious and there was first, electricity, and second a TV, DVD player, stereo, and computer, but alas no internet. There was no running water, however, and I had to use an outhouse, wash clothing by hand, wash myself with a bucket and ladle, and the house was heated with wood. Still, not exactly the full Peace Corps experience. I should mention that by the end of my stay, my family had firmly moved into the middle class. One day, my host brother comes back with a washing machine, a microwave, and iron, and a cell phone and a few weeks later we had a sink with running water. The house itself was very typically Kazakh. Enormous detailed rugs were hung on all walls within the house and the outside door and window frames were blue with white geometrical carvings on them.
The family I was living with was absolutely amazing and with whom I will stay in contact with for the next two years. The head of the house is Zaurie, a mother and a teacher of Russian. She has two sons—Timur (22) and Sanjar (20), both of who are physical education teachers. There is no father, which actually was the case with almost all the host families. Zaurie deserves a whole blog entry to herself. She is a loud, gregarious woman who loves jokes (and lies) and always made me feel completely at ease. Though even by the end I only spoke a bit of Russian, there were never any quiet moments. Everyday, she would tell me the local gossip or some fantastical story such as the one about the Uzunagach cannibal who had a penchant for Russian girls and made dumplings out of them. She had a way of telling stories that crossed linguistic boundaries. But she did dedicate much of her time, despite having no free time, to helping me learn Russian. Whenever she saw me studying, she would ask if I needed help and regardless of my response, she would take my books and notes and go through it with me. She is also a very traditional woman, despite her love of alcohol and vehemence toward her own religion, Islam. Whenever she thought I might be ill or that there were bad spirits around, she would light matches and swirl them over my head. Since I showered only once a week, I sometimes thought my hair would catch on fire. She also made me pin a tiny evil eye on the inside of my shirt collar to keep away these spirits and especially those sent by our next-door neighbor. She accused this woman of cursing me for “my beautiful face” and causing me to fall off a horse…yes that did happen and yes, that is the end of my dream to ride a horse everyday to work in Kazakhstan. But as one can imagine, it was awkward walking past this sweet looking neighbor as my host mother whispers that she is cursing me. Zaurie also describes herself as a fortuneteller and using an ordinary deck of cards, told the future for everyone.
The two sons were also great to have around. Timur is the one with whom I became closest and who kind of took me under his wing. For the first two weeks, he walked me to school everyday and would pick me up. He stayed at home at night and we watched TV together. Sanjar, on the other hand, is the wild son who went out every night and came back at four or five in the morning. He was always fighting with his mom and yelling, but there is also some childish innocent in him as well.
This is getting long and there is still so much to tell about my stay in Uzunagach. But as I don’t want people to stop reading cause of the length, I will post the second half later.
For the past three months, I was in Pre-Service Training (PST). This is the period where Peace Corps trainees are placed in a village with around ten other Americans and you learn all the skills you will need for the next two years. This includes language training, teaching training, and cultural training. In addition to studying the language—primarily Russian, but also Kazakh—we taught classes, ran English clubs, held teacher workshops, and came up with and executed a secondary community project. In short, it was an extremely hectic three months and although it felt like forever, now that I am at my permanent site it seems like PST lasted only a week.
For PST, I was placed in the Kazakh (meaning over 75% Kazakh) village of Uzunagach. The village is a bit over an hour from Almaty, the former capital and still commercial center of Kazakhstan. Uzunagach is a pleasant place with around 30,000 people and though it is called a village, it had more of a suburban feel. The main strip of the town is very typical of a Kazakhstani town and village. There is a monument to the local hero, Karasay Batir; the akemat (local government); an enormous building for the education department; the “Culture House;” WWII, or Great Patriotic War as it is known here, monument with eternal flame; and further down the bazaar, the post office, and KazTelecom. Nine other Americans were placed in Uzunagach (one later dropped out) and we were split into two groups and were placed into different schools. In these groups, we learned Russian and worked on projects, but all eight of us became very close.
Although I was technically located in Uzunagach, I actually lived in a much smaller village outside called Jana Khurlus, which is 30 minutes away by foot. Jana Khurlus is an interesting place. The name apparently means “New York” in Kazakh—Jana means New and Khurlus means…York??? Everyone told me this and unfortunately my Russian and certainly my Kazakh were not at a level where I could get a straight answer about how this is possible. Jana Khurlus also has a high population of Chechens. I should mention here that Kazakhstan is a heterogeneous country. Only 60% of the population is Kazakh, around 30% is Russian, and the rest is German, Ukrainian, Korean, Chechen, or other Turkic—Uzbek, Uigher, Karakalpak, Turk, Tatar. Most of the peoples, including the Chechens, were put in Kazakhstan under Stalin to keep them from being disruptive.
In Jana Khurlus, I lived with a Kazakh family in what felt like a farmhouse. Although they were one of the poorer families with which an American was residing, it was definitely not what I expected. It was decently spacious and there was first, electricity, and second a TV, DVD player, stereo, and computer, but alas no internet. There was no running water, however, and I had to use an outhouse, wash clothing by hand, wash myself with a bucket and ladle, and the house was heated with wood. Still, not exactly the full Peace Corps experience. I should mention that by the end of my stay, my family had firmly moved into the middle class. One day, my host brother comes back with a washing machine, a microwave, and iron, and a cell phone and a few weeks later we had a sink with running water. The house itself was very typically Kazakh. Enormous detailed rugs were hung on all walls within the house and the outside door and window frames were blue with white geometrical carvings on them.
The family I was living with was absolutely amazing and with whom I will stay in contact with for the next two years. The head of the house is Zaurie, a mother and a teacher of Russian. She has two sons—Timur (22) and Sanjar (20), both of who are physical education teachers. There is no father, which actually was the case with almost all the host families. Zaurie deserves a whole blog entry to herself. She is a loud, gregarious woman who loves jokes (and lies) and always made me feel completely at ease. Though even by the end I only spoke a bit of Russian, there were never any quiet moments. Everyday, she would tell me the local gossip or some fantastical story such as the one about the Uzunagach cannibal who had a penchant for Russian girls and made dumplings out of them. She had a way of telling stories that crossed linguistic boundaries. But she did dedicate much of her time, despite having no free time, to helping me learn Russian. Whenever she saw me studying, she would ask if I needed help and regardless of my response, she would take my books and notes and go through it with me. She is also a very traditional woman, despite her love of alcohol and vehemence toward her own religion, Islam. Whenever she thought I might be ill or that there were bad spirits around, she would light matches and swirl them over my head. Since I showered only once a week, I sometimes thought my hair would catch on fire. She also made me pin a tiny evil eye on the inside of my shirt collar to keep away these spirits and especially those sent by our next-door neighbor. She accused this woman of cursing me for “my beautiful face” and causing me to fall off a horse…yes that did happen and yes, that is the end of my dream to ride a horse everyday to work in Kazakhstan. But as one can imagine, it was awkward walking past this sweet looking neighbor as my host mother whispers that she is cursing me. Zaurie also describes herself as a fortuneteller and using an ordinary deck of cards, told the future for everyone.
The two sons were also great to have around. Timur is the one with whom I became closest and who kind of took me under his wing. For the first two weeks, he walked me to school everyday and would pick me up. He stayed at home at night and we watched TV together. Sanjar, on the other hand, is the wild son who went out every night and came back at four or five in the morning. He was always fighting with his mom and yelling, but there is also some childish innocent in him as well.
This is getting long and there is still so much to tell about my stay in Uzunagach. But as I don’t want people to stop reading cause of the length, I will post the second half later.
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