The AKKSUIRWL

I realized that 1)I havn't said anything about what I actually do here in Kazakhstan, and 2)For that matter, I really havn't given much news or information about anything in this blog. So here's a little bit about my work:

Most of my time here is spent at the Abylai Khan Kazakh State University of International Relations and World Languages. It's kind of a miniature MIIS- They have a school of translation/interpretation, a school of international business/law/relations, and a school of pedagogy/linguistics. And all of the programs require students to take classes in a foreign language. At first I thought that they pretty much all studied in English, but actually a lot of them study in French, German, Arabic, Chinese, etc.

A lot of my hours are spent at the university, but as a student of Russian & Kazakh. Language is going...well. I'm learning a lot and doing a ton of talking with host family and around town, but the classes are kind of a drag. Picture a mix of the Grammar Translation method and the Audiolingual method. Ouch! I'm sorry to say that for every day of Russian class I have several pages of masterpiece doodles and cartoons (which, by the way, do have captions in Russian).

I also teach classes in the Pedagogical faculty. Right now I have all freshmen, and they are great. Their English is good- a nice solid Intermediate. One interesting thing is that because the government is placing such an emphasis on education right now, a lot of grants are available for students to study in the pedagogical faculty. But the educational system hasn't quite got the memo, and teachers still get paid one of the lowest salaries in KZ, so as a result a lot of the students in my classes don't actually want to be teachers- they're just good students who got grants. This is a challenge- but I see it as a really good "Peace Corps" opportunity- my job is kind of to get these students excited about teaching so that during their 4 years at school, they'll be more interested in it and then when they graduate they'll be more invested in the profession and hopefully become teachers. It's not exactly giving vaccines to the village children, but it's very Peace Corps in its own little way I think.

My group of trainees (there are 6 of us- we're a really awesome group actually) also gives professional development workshops to the faculty. On Friday me and another guy are giving the first one: Authentic materials. (Did you hear that Peter?!) I'm pretty pumped. It's a workshop that I already gave to my training group at the request of the Training Director, so I think it'll go pretty well.

The last major thing that we do at the university is English Club. When I first heard this term, it sounded pretty hokey, so I understand if it doesn't strike you as very exciting. But the cooler names just wouldn't draw as big of a crowd. Twice a week we meet with about 20 students from all different universities and programs, and just have fun in English. This is sometimes the highlight of my week, because we get to just hang out with the students and talk, without the professor-student vibe (a vibe which is pretty strong here- there's a lot of distance between the local Ss and Ts).

So anyway, this post was a little dry, but I'm about to do another post about something crazy that babushka did last week, and some big news. So stay tuned.