Making Connections

I have officially begun the process of learning some Ukrainian and Russian before I move. It has really got me thinking about the language learning experience, and what my students will be going through.

To help us new volunteers get started on learning Ukrainian the Peace Corps sends out twenty short lessons to practice with. They provide you with written text in English, phonetic Ukrainian, and Ukrainian in the Cyrillic alphabet, and recordings that ask you to listen to the speaker and then repeat. These are definitely the basics, phrases like "I'm American" and "good afternoon."

I've been working with these lessons for a few weeks now, and it is definitely helpful to hear a native speaker say the words, however, I could listen to those lessons all day long and I hardly remember a thing when I'm done. For me, it is not enough to just hear and repeat. I need to work with the material and come up with memory tricks on my own. For example, the word for bye in Ukrainian is poka. When I think of polka the dance I can envision the dancers hands moving up and down in the air, almost like a wave. Waving goodbye is my connection. This has been working pretty well for me, plus it's fun and rewarding to come up with something that works for you. You have to be creative, patient, and flexible, skills that are key to all language learning.

It is important to keep in mind that our students need more than to just hear the words that we want them to learn. They must manipulate them and draw connections.