Kharkiv American English Club, Ice Skating and Going to the Theater!

I seem to be getting more and more behind in my blog posts. April was a really busy month for me, so here are a few updates on what extracurricular activities I've been up to besides just working in my school...

For the past few months, the Peace Corps Volunteers in Kharkiv Oblast have been organizing free English clubs at the Kharkiv American Center. We meet once monthly and usually we have about an hour of general speaking club, then we show an American movie and discuss different themes from the movie. This English club has been pretty successful, we started out in December with about 10 people and its grown to about 30 attendees.

February English club. 

In March, our English club theme was St.Patrick's Day! I told everyone to wear something green ahead of time, but some of the Ukrainians thought this was strange (because they didn't know the tradition of wearing green). We presented about the history and traditions of St. Patrick's day and then we watched the movie "Leap Year". Afterwards, we went to an Irish restaurant in downtown Kharkiv to celebrate.

March English club group. 

with my sitemate Sam, Byron and our friend Artom. 

Laura, Erika and Anton. 

 While hanging out in downtown Kharkiv, I've discovered a few cool things to do and places to see that I didn't know about last year... this is the advantage of making friends with more locals who know more about their hometown! I went ice skating with a few friends and some students in a huge shopping mall called Karavan which is located near the metro station Heroiv Truda (the last stop on the blue line). It cost only 30 UAH (about $3) for an hour of ice skating, which really surprised me because things are usually very expensive in the city.

with the ice skating group. 

Ty and Ira together. 

with Liza, Yulia, and Stas. 

I found another giant Adidas soccer ball in the Karavan mall! These things are oversized versions of the official EuroCup match balls and they are popping up everywhere now that EuroCup is approaching soon... I saw one of these first inside the Globos mall in Kyiv (located under Independence Square) and I've also seen one in Kharkiv near the main train station.

Just kickin' it. 

I also discovered a small Vietnamese restaurant very close to the center. Its called Fanzi Pan and located right down the hill from Pushinskaya Street, near the metro station Architectora Beketova (on the green line).  I ordered their Pho and some rice crackers, and it was great being able to eat some asian food! I hadn't had Pho since I left Atlanta about 2 years ago.

They also had some great floor-to-ceiling wallpaper so I couldn't resist taking a photo with it. 

my Pho and rice crackers! mmmmm.... 

Kicking Off English Week at School

This week is English Week at my school, along with next week. I started off the week by having my 5th, 6th, and 7th formers (graders) make Valentines Day cards during English club. They did a great job, here is a photo of their Valentines posted on the wall in the main hallway on the 1st floor of my school. A few 11th form students made the posters in the middle.

Happy Valentines Day!

My 5th form class is studying holidays right now, so we discussed different holidays in Ukraine and the USA. Then my teacher Larisa and I assigned them Valentines Day cards for homework. I wish I had homework that was as fun as making Valentines Day cards when I was back in school! Here is a photo of me with the 5th formers :)

How do you like my Ukrainian boots with the fur? Those are the boots from my host sister, they have like 4in heels and all the teachers always comment on how they like the boots.

Just for fun, I asked my 8th, 9th and 10th form students to draw a Facebook profile since teenagers in America all use Facebook, as opposed to Vkontakte.ru (the Ukrainian/Russian version of Facebook). I only convinced a few students to do this assignment (since it wasn't mandantory), but here are the profiles that they made! I taped them to the wall of my classroom door and now they can write on each other's walls (with a pen or pencil) in English :-D

Now all of the students love crowding around my door to stare at the Facebook profile pages haha.

 We also played the UNO card game during English club, all my students are crazy about this game! I'm not sure whether its the novelty of the cards or the fact that they can play silently, without needing to practice their English haha. Last week during English Club, I taught my 8-11th formers how to play Go Fish and we ran out of cards to "fish" from really quickly since I only had 1 deck of cards and about 10 students.

UNO!

My school also had its annual Fire Brigade Competition this week between the 8-11th forms. I had never heard of such a competition before, it is apparently all about fire prevention and poison mushroom awareness education. The students performed creative short skits, danced, or sang songs by class on stage in our school auditorium. They all worked very hard on their performances!

A few girls from the 8V class show off their posters of dangerous fire hazards (and to call 101 in case of fire emergency).

Students from the 10A class have to identify different types of poisonous mushrooms as part of the competition.

Several girls from the 11th form dance in traditional Ukrainian dresses as part of their play.