Actually, I had two first sessions in the last 24 hours. I enjoyed them both. Both were rewarding. Both were effective. Full disclosure, however: only one was easy.
I know. I’m supposed to post how easy it was and how much fun. Well, it was fun. For both students. The sound for one of them, however, was not great, and that buddy’s accent was heavy. We never had to resort to chat or IM or any form of written communication. Just a fair number of “I’m not sure what you said,” and “Did you mean to say...” type stuff.
Even so, during the session we made noticeable progress. Communication grew smoother as we went along, and we were even beginning, both of us, to tell funny stories by the end. That’s pretty freakin’ awesome.
My other buddy had a great Skype connection. Our communication was fluid and effective from the outset. A picture perfect start to what will surely be a great partnership.
Meanwhile, I am so gratified by the number of Kossacks signing up and enjoying their sessions. If you do give it a try, on one of the early screens you will need to pick the Ukrainian specific option. That option also says something about being under the auspices of a Jewish program. In the initial questions is, however, the only reference to Jewish anything. Iht does not matter whether you have any religious affiliation or inclination.
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A shout out to Kossack AnnikaQED, whose post got me going, and to mmclean who has jumped in and is helping others get started. Not only did those two help many of us (e.g. me) get started, the totality of what they have accomplished is awesome.
In fact, the DKOS community is awesome. We are like a rising tide in a body of water: each of us contributes only a small amount to the rise, but overall the effect is dramatic. English speaking Ukrainians are going to be absolutely critical to the recovery of Ukraine when the war is over. I have no way to count them, but the number of Ukrainians learning this critical skill must already be several score. Together we are strong. Very strong.
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There is now a nascent (just being born) group for tutoring English, and a tag for stories on the topic. The tag is TutoringEnglish. If you write a story relevant to the topic, please add that tag.
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In less than two hours, I will be meeting my first Ukrainian buddy. Frankly, I’m on pins and needles. Which is kind of stupid. Having spent my entire life in the United States, I’m actually pretty fluent in English.
But I so much want this to come off well. My buddy is depending on me. Basically, my job is to speak English and, over time, correct pronunciation of my Ukrainian student. Honestly, there is zero chance that I flub this. And still I’m nervous.
So far this has been a piece of cake. I detest Putin and hate that Russia invaded Ukraine. There is no “both sides” here. With that, I passed the first test. I participated in two seminars. Check. I passed the quiz at the end. Simple questions about how things are done at ENGin. Check. It took more than a week to be assigned a buddy, but at last I got an email.
An actual human being who needed my help! I sent an introductory email with four proposed times for our first meeting. Check. I used simple English and stated that it was OK if she (he?) needed to use a translation program. And… I got back a well written response. My buddy is fluent, even erudite. If talking fails, we can revert to written messages.
I’m loving it.
Post Script: More information about how to sign up, and what it is like, can be found under the tag “TutoringEnglish.”
