Introduction
Previous Diaries
At the beginning of December I described how I got started with ENGin, and gave an overview of my first few sessions with my Ukrainian buddy, Yana. About a week ago I wrote a diary about how she and I plan, how we set the agenda, and, broadly, what we talk about. You can find these and other ENGin-related diaries by searching for the tag @TutoringEnglish.
Today’s Diary
For the current diary, I’m going to drill down a bit, and go into more details of what we covered in this week’s (fairly typical) conversation. Since I can’t condense 90 minutes of conversation into a diary of reasonable length, I’m splitting it in two parts.
But before I start the real Part 1, I want to say a few words about something many of us hate: grammar!
Grammar Lessons
Some volunteers are OK preparing grammar lessons, and others are not. It is absolutely NOT a requirement for volunteering. But even if your buddy would like to talk about a point of grammar, and you are not comfortable ‘teaching’ grammar, there may still be something you can do. I’ll write about some possibilities in Part 2.
Our Agenda for This Week
Here’s what we had planned (and what we postponed) for this week — lightly edited. Between this diary and the next, I’ll cover each of the numbered items:
Session 34 - Friday 2023-12-15 09:00 – 10:30 ET; 16:00 – 17:30 EET - https://meet.google.com/xxx-yyyy-zzz
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Free conversation, exchange weekly news - 30 mins
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Yana’s homework: Turing test, Alan Turing, Chinese room experiment - postponed to next week
https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/turing-test
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Planning future topics (grammar and non-grammar) Topics
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Malcolm’s homework - Adjectives and Adverbs - use and abuse - code switching
- postponed to next week
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Corrections from Telegram chat-2023-12-13
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More synonyms & phrasal verbs in the future?
As usual, about 30-40 minutes before our session starts, I opened the shared agenda document to see if my buddy had changed anything since I went to sleep last night.
As I was looking at the screen, another item appeared - Яна is sneaking in a last-minute topic!!
7. Malcolm’s project with information for other volunteers
I was intrigued! - more info in Part 2!
1. Free conversation, exchange weekly news
This is the one constant on our agenda. Although we occasionally have a quick chat on Telegram, we usually use this time to catch up on whatever has been happening since our previous session. It’s completely unstructured time. Of course, each of us has an idea of what we intend to talk about here, but naturally we go off on tangents.
I believe that this agenda item is important for two reasons:
a. It’s good for us to know what’s going on in each other’s lives. I’ve never met Яна in real life, and, unfortunately, probably never will, but she is my friend.
b. Яна should be able to react quickly to my news, which is, well, new and unpredictable. This is a significant test of, and exercise for, fluency. It’s also a good opportunity for me to listen for pronunciation and grammar slips, that I may correct right away, or may use as material for a lesson later on.
For example, a few months ago, after I noticed a systematic error in Яна’s speech, we talked about the use of the present tense for future events after “when” and “if”. That is, you don’t say “When I will go to work tomorrow, I plan to…”, but rather “When I go to work tomorrow, I plan to…”.
Now, if I hear a future tense after “when” or “if”, I just need to hold up a finger and Яна smiles and corrects herself.
What we discussed
This week we talked about my preparations for an upcoming trip to Mexico.
We also talked about two Russian attacks on Ukraine: The cyber attack on KyivStar, Ukraine’s major internet and cell service provider; and the missile and drone attack on Kyiv, the number of people injured, and the damage done, including the destruction of the home of someone Яна’s family knows.
Because of the cyber attack, Яна had to try to find a place to work, and ended up in a cold, noisy, crowded cafe filled with people all doing the same as her: hoping to find a quiet (!!) place to work. Fortunately, by Friday, internet service was back to normal, with cell service promised in a few more days.
2. Yana’s homework: Turing test, Alan Turing, Chinese room experiment
https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/turing-test
A couple of weeks ago Яна asked if we could discuss a TED talk about how we’ll earn money in a future in which we humans may not have jobs - due to automation and AI. I asked if she knew about Alan Turing, and she said she’d do some research for a future session. I’m a great admirer of Turing, but I don’t know what my buddy thinks of homosexuality (Ukraine seems to be a quite conservative society), and I’m a little nervous about how this conversation will go.
In any case, this was not the week for that discussion, since neither of us was quite ready. But I know we’ll have a good discussion when we are both prepared. First, I need to (re)watch A Beautiful Mind. Яна suggested that we use the builtin.com URL to help with our eventual discussion.
3. Planning future topics (grammar and non-grammar) Topics
After eight months we have covered lots of topics. Actually, I’m amazed at how easily we talk together, and how many things we have discussed.
We talked about what has worked in the past; topics we have mentioned in the past, but have not got around to yet; and a few other ideas we each have had recently.
If you would like to see our topic list, let me know
Altogether we have about 20 topics to choose from, including several that are brand new.
Decision
We settled on word games, and word puzzles as something new and fun to try, starting in a week or two.
As an example of a word puzzle:
stand you
I
Solution at the end of the diary.
4. Malcolm’s homework - Adjectives and Adverbs
A few weeks ago Яна asked me to explain the different uses of adjective & adverbs, so I said I’d do some reading and then write up a mini-lesson on the topic. It's not as straightforward as it seemed, so I’ve had to postpone twice. However, the lesson is coming along nicely now.
I plan to talk about proper use of adjective & adverbs, common “errors”, and whether they are really errors, or fall more into the category of strictly incorrect, but OK in limited situations.
Coming Up
In the second part of this diary, I’ll talk about the process I went through to create the adjective & adverbs lesson, including resources I used to keep me on the strait and narrow.
WHAT ENGin DOES
ENGin is a nonprofit organization that connects English-speaking volunteers aged 14+ with motivated young Ukrainians aged 9 to 35 for online speaking practice and cross-cultural exchange.
See https://www.enginprogram.org/ and https://www.enginprogram.org/volunteer
Note: This diary contains my own perceptions and opinions, and should not be considered as the official views of ENGin.
Diaries with ENGin content will appear with the tags #TutoringEnglish and #Ukraine
Слава Україні!, 𝑺𝒍𝒂𝒗𝒂 𝑼𝒌𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒊! Героям слава!, 𝑯𝒆𝒓𝒐𝒊𝒂𝒎 𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒗𝒂! |
stand you
I
”I” is underneath “stand you”, so you can read it as “I under stand you”.