more classes, optimism

Sorry for the lack of updates--I'm currently trying to resolve an ongoing internet access situation.  While my apartment is hooked up to the net, in Russia most people still pay usage instead of a flat monthly rate, so there's no money on my "card."  In order to put money on it, I need the account info, which is proving harder to get than it should be, not because of any technical difficulties but rather...how shall I put this...lack of focus on the part of the girl renting me the apartment.  While it's not a priority for her, it means everytime I want to check my email I have to go to the netcafe or one of the cafes with free Wi-fi.  Not the end of the world, but it gets a bit tiresome and makes it near impossible to coordinate Skyping opportunities with people back home.  Hopefully it will be resolved soon, however.

In more cheery news, I had my first full day of classes on Friday with fourth-years, third-years, and first-years.  The third- and fourth-year classes left me very impressed.  Turns out the second-years I had first are just a wily bunch, as the others were much more interested in and focused on learning and speaking English.  While most of the class time with the first-years was dedicated to separating them into two classes based on their skill level, to their credit they spoke very well for their first college English class.  Both the 3's and 4's had lots of good suggestions for what topics of American culture they'd like me to cover this year.  As expected, holidays and history were both very popular choices (oh, I forgot to mention they're all history students) which is great for me as a teacher as I'll enjoy both subjects.  It looks like I'll be taking over the 4's class once a week very soon, maybe even next week.  I'm sure the same sort of format will emerge for the 3's.  It's still unclear how we'll handle the 1's and 2's.  While I'm certainly not afraid to take on my own classes, I'll probably be best utilized with the more advanced students, as I'm not a trained teacher of English, something I think Tatiana appreciates.

I'm to prepare a short lecture on a topic of my choice for tomorrow.  I decided since holidays were so popular in the suggestions I'd start with the Fourth of July.  It seems a perfect choice for many reasons--it's the quintessential American patriotic holiday, it's got a lot of history tied up in it, and I get to talk about fireworks, barbeque, and Will Smith blowing up aliens.  I'm looking forward to it, and trying to scale the follow-up activity based on skill level.  We'll see how it goes!

first day of class

Well, today was my first day of class, both for the school year and as a teacher.  It's more than a bit weird to be on the other side of the desk with everyone looking at you for instructions.  I'm starting out by just teaching with Tanya as her in-class assistant and resident Superteacher of English®.  The class was made up of second-year students, so they weren't total beginners in their English studies.  It was a little less weird than I had thought it would be being the one in semi-charge, as kids tend to start university a bit younger in Russia and thus there was a larger age difference than I'd feared.

There was a lot of Russian spoken in class (I'd estimate up to as high as 90-95% of the words spoken), but it was the first day back from summer vacation so I'm trying not to put too much stock in it.  I'm definitely planning on running things a bit differently if/when I take on my own classes, though.  Tomorrow I've got three classes, including fourth-years, third-years, and first-years, so we'll see how those differ.  I've been tasked with preparing a 10-minute activity for the third- and fourth-years, sort of an icebreaker type thing, so I'm going with the one where you write three sentences about yourself, two of which are true and one which isn't.  The rest of the class then has to figure out which is the lie.  It's simple, but it'll use vocabulary they know and it'll get them talking.  We'll see how it goes.

In other news, I'm going to have to take some kind of instruction at the university as I'm here on a student visa.  While I'm obviously here to teach, they need some kind of official reason for my having that type of visa, so it looks like I'm going to be getting some private instruction in Russian a few hours a week.  It's fine with me, as it's something I'd wanted to do anyway, and I could definitely use it.  Not much else news as of now, more later.

I did want to say thanks to those of you that have subscribed as followers.  If you'd ever like to ask any questions or anything, you probably know of other ways to get a hold of me, but I will check the comments on any posts and respond as soon as possible.  If you'd like to post a comment, you just need to sign into a Google account.  If you don't have one, it takes about forty seconds to sign up for free.  I'd set it to let anyone comment, but I could do without the automated comments offering me real natural male enhancement.  You understand.

phonetics and other fine pursuits

I haven't written much for this blog, as I haven't had much to say.  Despite all the information I've been given, there's still a lot that I don't know.  Things have been getting clearer in the past few days, as I've finally established communication with who I presume will be my main contact at PetrSU, Tatiana.  I assume I'll learn a lot more at the pre-departure orientation in Washington in a few weeks.  Including how to teach English, presumably.

Anyways, Tatiana, in the two emails I've gotten from her, certainly seems nice and was able to answer some of my most burning questions.  Apparently I'll be starting off as an assistant to a teacher of English at the university, and if all goes well I'll likely take on some of my own lectures/classes.  The students at the university range from beginner to advanced proficiency, and most are either studying law, business, or tourism.  All three specialties of mine, fortunately.  I'm particularly looking forward to giving a lecture on the various "World's Largest [insert random item]s" I've seen.  A chair as big as a house, I tell you!

She also said she'd like it if I conducted a course on phonetics, as she explained that is an area where there are "big problems."  I naturally have no idea what phonetics are, so that should be no problem.  Are phonetics the same as phonics?  Because I'm hooked on those.  Any help is appreciated.  Basically, she said the most important thing will be that I participate in conversational practice, which shouldn't be too difficult because I, like, talk English good.  Kinda.

Perhaps most importantly, she said there shouldn't be any problem finding an apartment near the university, and gave me a website where I can check listings.  To paraphrase my good friend Tony, that's grrrrrreat!  I think I'd go mildly insane if I were forced to live in a dorm again.  And for those of you wise guys out there thinking, "what do you mean, go mildly insane," that's a relative statement.