Euro-Club: an English Week Karaoke Talent Show

Last Friday, I went to my friend Whitney's school in Kharkiv to attend their karaoke show. Whitney is a TEFL (Teacher of English as a Foreign Language) Peace Corps Volunteer like myself, and she organized this karaoke talent show as the culmination of her school's English week, and it was certainly an impressive show! The school's auditorium was all decorated professionally and the event was called Euro-Club, complete with MCs, a jury panel, and a projector screen of music videos and lyrics.

Whitney with a few of the English teachers from around her district and fellow PCVs - Sally, Ty, Sam and myself.

We kicked off the show by singing the Glee version of Bill Wither's "Lean on Me". Students from the 5th through 11th forms participated in this event, complete with costumes and choreographed backup dancers. They all memorized their songs and sang very well in English, I was really impressed! I tried to sing a song in Russian called "Pozvenee" by Tatyana Bulanova and was horribly embarassed because I didn't realize that I wouldn't be able to see the screen with the lyrics from on stage. Here are a few highlights from the show:

The 7th graders sang a song called "Valentine".

These 5th graders were adorable, they stole everyone's heart while singing a Marilyn Monroe song.

Several of the 8th graders performed Bob Marley's "Don't Worry, Be Happy".

A girl from the 9th form sang Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved".

A group of girls from the 11th form sang and danced to Shakira's "Waka Waka: Time for Africa"

The MCs sang a song in French!

These 5th graders were super cute while singing Aqua's "Barbie Girl".

Overall, I think that a karaoke talent show was a great idea. I might even try to plan an event like this during my school's English week next year :D Sam and I were the only two PCVs that participated as contestants, the others were judges. The panel of judges each held up pieces of paper to give marks from 1 through 10 to each contestant, like American Idol style. After all 14 groups/contestants went, the jury went out to debate and selected the top 3 winners based on their marks and criteria like vocals, pronunciation, overall performance, etc. All of the participants received a little certificate ("gramota" in Russian/Ukrainian) printed in color on glossy photo paper with their names on it. Ukrainians are crazy about certificates like these and all the students were excited to have them. Prizes were given out for the top 3 participants and each participant also received a box of chocolates!

Sam (my sitemate) gave his own rendition of Celo Green's "Forget You".

We were also featured in the Euro-Club's official blog. I am not quite sure what Euro-Club is, but from what I understand, it is about sharing cultures among European countries and it is quite popular among secondary schools in Kharkiv. I will have to research some more information about it... maybe my school will be interested in participating!