English Classes - Dec 26/07

Today we met to two of Tonya's english classes, Tonya is a good friend of my mom's and used to be my mom's Russian teacher. I believe my mom said she has been running her classes for 2 years now. In Ukraine there are not enough schools for children to go to school all day so some go in the morning and some go in the afternoon, therefore they are given a lot of work to do at home. These students take these english classes apart from regular school. None of them had ever met a foreigner before so we were a little like celebrities over there. Jolayne was eating it up, she loved being a star!!

Tonya's brother picked us up in this car so we wouldn't have to take a taxi - her school is quite aways from my parents place. He didn't know exactly where my parents street was so my mom offered for us to meet him at the main street...well, my mom had only met him once so she wasn't entirely sure what he looks like and all we knew is that he was driving a red car. We were waiting at the corner and this red car turned in, the man inside was looking at a piece paper so we assumed he might be Tonya's brother. My mom approached the car so he opened the door slightly and she asked if he was Tonya's brother, I guess he gave her quite the look and said no. The right guy did eventually find us and we squished into his little red car...Jolayne dosed off in the back seat since we were pretty much wedged together and the large potholes rocked her to sleep - she'll deny it but she was asleep!! Later, Tonya and my mom shared an incredible story about Tonya's brother...little did we know we were being cauffeured by an ex-con!!

The first class welcomed us with signs and a big hello as soon as we walked into the building. First they got to ask us questions using some of the vocabulary that they had learned so far, we got questions like - What's your favorite color? to.... Can you jump high? and Can you run fast? Not your typical questions but it was fun and they spoke english very well - some have only been learning english for about 6 months. In the second class, I said I was lazy so I couldn't run fast. After the class one of the girls came up and asked "you very lazy?" We had a good laugh about that. In the first class some students had prepared some riddles and stories in english which they shared with us and in the second class a group of them sang "Jingle Bells" for us in english...it was very cute!! Then we got to teach them a song, the first class were younger students and had just learned parts of the body so we taught them "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and the second class the girls used some of the swimming lesson material to teach them the "Shark Song". I tried out some of the Russian I had learned from my last trip to Ukraine and had the students translate it to english. At the end of both classes they gave us gifts, some home made and others that were bought - their teacher made a cake for each class. And yes, I actually ate TWO pieces of cake...the worst part (not being that I don't like cake) but they both had coconut...and I hate coconut. But I did manage to get them both down...despite a little bit of gagging...especially on the second piece!! :)

At the end of both classes they wanted to get take our pictures on their cells phones, some students from the first class stayed for the second one. And the second class, started out by asking for our autographs, then they wanted emails, addresses and one girl even asked Jolayne for her phone number (I think they really liked Jolayne...cause she was blonde...Shari and I bugged her about that cause she got more gifts than we did from both classes.

The first class with their welcome signs!! Read front to back "Welcome dear friends"


The first class with us too!


The second class


The group that performed "Jingle Bells" for us. The tall girl in cream and the little boy next to her are brother and sister.


Learning the shark song


Some of the girls doing "grandma shark"


Jolayne and Shari - surrounded by some of the kids!


Some of the boys checking out our autographs!


This is the girl that asked me if I was very lazy.


Tonya - when I first started planning my trip, my mom had asked me to bring UNO cards with me for Tonya because Tonya and her daugther Sveta had played it once at my parents. Well, shortly before christmas Tonya had asked to borrow my mom's cards so that she could make her own set. My mom kept putting her off because she knew these were coming...Tonya was very excited to open them!!