Global+Educator

// "Reason respects the differences, and imagination the similitude of things." ~Percy Shelley  //

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**4.2.12 (Russian Format)** Today we started morning with a meeting with the dean and the language faculty at Pskov pedagogical institute. There we met Tatyana(s), Larissa, Nina, Etena, Natalia(s), Maria, Anna, Nadezhda (meaning "hope"), and Seregy. What a wonderful staff! They were so happy to receive us and we even got a gift, a book called "The Russian Daily Bread." I plan on starting this ASAP. The subjects these teachers teach range from practical English to phonetical grammar and history of English. We (Group America!) split into two groups of two to observe a lesson at the university. My group went to Nadezhda's class where we watched a lesson based out of __To Kill a Mockingbird__.

The class consisted of only four students (which would never happen at NC State because the class would simply be canceled on account of too few people!). The lesson was structured well and it flowed nicely. There was only a chalk board, teacher and student desks, book cases, TV, and two white boards in the classroom. Very "deprived" compared to American classrooms (generally) with their smart board, document cameras, laptops, etc. The scaffolding of the lecture was nicely done, much like I have been taught in my methods classes at NC State. The class was organized around a worksheet containing vocabulary, true and false, recall questions and inferencing questions. Throughout the teacher asked secondary questions to pull more from the students as they went along in their lesson. **More later as I will eventually scan the observation notes I made!**


 * Below you can see a brief video clip of the vocabulary portion of the lesson:**

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Also, above on the right you can see our meeting of the faculty of the Linguistic Gymnasium before our first tour of the school and observations of the classrooms.

**Week One in the Linguistic Gymnasium**



In the pictures above you will see our first day in the Linguistic Gymnasium. The classrooms above belong to the 2nd form, or 3rd grade equivalent in the U.S. The picture to the left shows the children's individual cubicle work spaces that are organized to suit each individual student. Each student has the Russian flag at their desk along with Russian-English dictionaries, their own choice of pens and pencils, photos, pencil sharpeners, spaces for books, and agendas, etc. The picture in the center is our pre-class meeting facilitated by Dean Maslova of the Pedagogical University and the teachers of the 2nd form. To the right in the middle picture you can see the Dean from NC State university, Mrs. Jane Flenner, and to the left you can see my travel teacher-study-buddy, Mr. Justin Earley. The picture to the top left is an image of the paces grading table. This is major student accountability! Each student is responsible for filling out a goal card for the week, done by day. As they complete their different studies (at their own paces) in English, Science, etc. they come to the center table and find the key that matches their pace. Here they check their own work and bring it to the teacher afterward to check and initial with a green pen. :-D

(Left) This is a poster chart of the completed task of this particular student. As you can see, he is really doing a great job keeping up with his English and Science lessons! (Middle) Here you can see an example of the individualized cubicle space. The poster chart is in the back, Russian flag in front, pencil caddy, books, sharpener, etc. etc. :-D (Right) This is a photo of the weekly objectives. The students fill these out daily and keep up with them throughout the week.

Each class has two rooms to work out of. One room is usually dedicated to individual pace work and the other room is meant for group lessons. As you can see, there are plants everywhere! Each classroom has its own feel and there is usually a sitting area (as you can see there is a couch in the picture to the left). The 2nd form classroom has space in the middle where the children are given a dance break between classes! Music gets put on the interactive board you see in the photos above and English songs are played where students all get together, sing, and dance (while learning English to boot!).

media type="custom" key="14454488" media type="custom" key="14454516" media type="custom" key="14454532" media type="custom" key="14454648" Here you will see happy 2nd form students dancing, music students, and students working on their paces saying hello to the camera after a brief introduction to the Americans! US! :-D

**Week Two in the University and the Linguistic Gymnasium**

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Above you can see my cooperating teacher in Russia, Anna! She is a tenth form teacher (11th grade American equivalent) and my new host here in Pskov. The video to the right shows the 360 degree view of the classroom. In the back are in classroom lockers that students can use to put away books and supplies and what not. The notebooks used are much smaller in size that the notebooks students in America use. As the camera pans to the right you can see the entrance/exit of the classroom, then the closet door, and then the conference/work room that adjoins the main classroom.

The closet, like all classrooms in the school is equipped with shoe shelves for taking off boots and putting on slippers, sneakers or heels; as well as coat hangers to hang up winter coats or sweaters. This set up is essential for comfort because many students walk to school and in the winter when it is snowing who wants to wear their snow boots all day? Also because of this the classroom feels more homey. You can bring all of your things with you, leave them in a secure place, and pick them up or change when it is time to go home. I personally loved this myself! It creates a good morning and evening habit of preparing for class and preparing to go home. It is comforting to know you have a place to securely store your things just like when you go home and put your shoes by the door or your coat on the coat rack.

In the back of the classroom there are two teacher's desks where teachers can rotate working with the computer or just using desk space. There is also a five gallon water jug in each class (because the water from the tap isn't safe to drink) and during the brief, but numerous breaks that both teachers and students can take during the day students can pull out a tea or coffee mug and get something to drink. Also behind the teacher's desks is a tea mug that heats in less than a minute and many students (and of course teachers) even are able to take hot tea breaks. I love these! There is always tea to be found a tea cakes or cookies. Staying refreshed and full and rested is an essential part of the school day that is built in between class lessons.

Tenth Form Classroom Week Two (~16 years old)

** On Wednesday of this week the tenth completed a lesson on Christopher Colombus for the purposes of reading comprehension and vocabulary building. The exercise began with a KWL chart where the students wrote down what they thought they knew about good old Christopher and what they wanted to know in their copy books (much smaller than ours in the states). Then they took a brief quiz from the pre-designed lesson seen above. The quiz was not a graded quiz and meant only as a form of self assessment and to activate triggers for their reading comprehension task. Then we read through the selection titled, "Columbus: hero or villain?" where we discussed the heading and subheadings as we went along. We practiced recall, inferencing, and reasoning skills. I read the selections aloud, asking for summaries, inferences, justifications for reasoning, etc. Then in pairs the students had to determine which details went into the missing blanks as you can see from the white boxes underneath the selection on Columbus. We discussed these and our reasons for choosing the answers picked. Then we moved onto discussion of the topic. Is he a villain or a hero indeed? There were answers on both, so we drew a Venn diagram and students filled it in. Most agreed that in the end they thought Christopher Columbus was a little of both, but mostly a villain because of his treatment of Native Americans. They have big hearts! :-D After that we filled in the "Learned" column, which took up a good part of the board. The students seemed pleased at being able to see tangibly what they learned during our classwork. The lesson went well and though I modified the pre-designed lesson a bit it was a good foundation for a solid lesson. **

Tutoring Outside of School media type="custom" key="15437136" Students here who want to enter a university or travel are serious about learning English. Many teachers teach home lessons to students who may not get the instruction they desire at school. Here are some examples of my work with students in Russia outside of the Linguistic Gymnasium. Take a look at our fun in learning!

Modified Reproduction of "The Scarlet Flower" **A.K.A Beauty and the Beast**

Words on "The Scarlet Flower"


 * During my time in Russia I was approached by two of the teachers from the linguistic gymnasium where I worked about joining their English tutoring lessons after school. They wanted their students to have the benefit of working with native English speaks so I quickly agreed and my colleague came along as well. We managed to work out times that were manageable for us all (e.g. the teachers from the school, the hostess of the apartment we did lessons in, the students, ourselves). We couldn't make it to all of the after school lessons but we were able to make it to at least one a week. The lessons were split usually between two groups and in some cases three when the younger group of students came for tutoring. **


 * This particular experience was extremely fun despite the fact that the students and my colleague and I had only known each other two days at this point! We started our time tutoring these students with Q&A type sessions and ice breakers. By the way: trying to remember a list of 12 Russian names and one fact about them can be difficult! These students were awesome though. I have much respect for any student who goes to school all day and still wants to learn and practice English in a one bedroom flat from 6pm to 8pm up to three times a week. There were so many shoes by the front door we had to start putting shoes on top of each other. There were at least twenty pairs! **

**You can see above the task for one of our sessions together was to re-create a version of "Beauty and the Beast" (In English). In Russia the story is known as "The Scarlet Flower." I helped head the "To-do" department and aimed to help organize and draw out the story board. Each pupil chose a part to play in the skit after we counted the number of people we had (everyone DID do a part) and we talked about locations for acting, script, props, etc. After our story board was ready we did a quick run through of the performance and then invited the second tutor group to come and watch the performance (which you can also see above). We had such sincere fun we didn't even notice we ended up staying there longer than two hours.**


 *  I think that this is a great activity for any group of students to take part in because it helps develop planning skills, oration skills, collaboration skills, and even can serve as a confidence booster. The goal wasn't for the performance to be perfect. It was meant for practice. And the students and myself had a fun time laughing, being creative, and sharing ideas. It was a meaningful experience that showed me how much we are all alike in nervousness, but also that we are all capable of tapping into our inner child. It was a great sharing and collaboration opportunity that allowed me to see the personality of each students and also so that they could see mine. I would love to use this exact type of idea in my class to connect cultures from across the globe. What better way to catch imagination than to pick fairy tales from different nations and allow students to concrete their connections through acting? Drama should definitely not be taking a backseat in the education expenses. It not only provides for education opportunities, but social ones as well. Part of being a functional 21st century individual (much like any century) is being able to communicate and be social. **

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 * Being Interviewed... **

