Every Website Ever

I'm cleaning out my bookmarks a bit and I thought I'd share the websites I use most often for lesson planning. I can't imagine teaching ESL without the Internet.




100 Best Youtube Channels for Teachers features ESL teaching techniques and videos on common topics.

ABCTeach is a membership based site but offers a lot of free early elementary materials. I highly recommend their readers and worksheets.

About has basic information on any aspect of teaching English as a foreign language.

Academic Earth has video courses from universities.

A to Z Teacher Stuff is a basic sight for elementary teachers, features links to sight words and word-game generators.

Agenda Web links to the British Council and has a lot of audio material.

Awesome Library has the basic of basic lesson plans and all that other stuff that makes early childhood education teachers a tad bit scary.

BBC English probably has everything you need, including great podcasts that enrich basic ESL themes.

Boggles World ESL makes teaching young learners so much easier.

Breaking News English has thousands of edited news stories along with audio and video.

BridgeTEFL has videos on teaching.

Building a Better Teacher is the article that spurred all the education debate in 2010.

Bus Songs, you can never underestimate the power of "The Wheels on the Bus".

Children's Music Archive has lyrics and activities.

Conversation Questions has discussion questions by topic.

Curriki is good for phonics and grammar.

Dave's ESL Cafe is where every classroom game originated.

Dyslexia and Foreign Language Learning, I wish I would have had this article from the beginning.

E-Books Directory has children's and audio.

Education World has some ESL resources, especially good for teaching groups of adult learners.

English Club is poorly arranged but has good time-fillers and fall-back plans.

ESL 4 Teachers is a link of a link of a link.

ESL as a Second Language Podcast

English Teacher Melanie for listening.

ESL Teacher Talk has the latest on ESL methodology.

ESL Flashcards is good for clipart. I also recommend tracing a few of these images every once and a while and building a visual library for your school.

ESL Flow has everything you can ever dream of, especially if you work with low to intermediate students.

ESL Galaxy has worksheets and games.

ESL Gold is great for supplemental material and building your own units.

ESL Kids has flashcards and other clipart that is easy to trace.

Express Publishing isn't a free website but I've bought a few of their books and am really happy with them.

FunFonix is a lifesaver for young learners who have fallen behind or have recently switched schools.

Genki English has ESL songs.

Good Teaching Top 10 is a list of cliches of good teaching but it's helpful for reviewing your weaknesses every once and awhile.

Inclusive Education for children in Ukraine is a website that connects people that work with special-needs in Ukraine.

Kids.gov is a portal to all things related to the government.

LessonPlanz for young learners.

Library of Congress covers all the basics of American history and culture.

MacMillan Business

MES English has tons of images and ideas for using the communicative method.

Minnesota State Colleges has links to other sites, especially good for one-on-one learning.

Michelle Henry is a French website of ESL materials. It is easy to adapt to the textbook.

Moving Forward has links to teaching blogs.

Musical English Lessons masks grammar by teaching pop songs.

Munseys has free e-books and a children's section.

National Endowment for the Humanities has lesson plans by subject.

One Stop English is a membership site but often has free downloads.

Outline of US History has a lot of downloads in different languages.

Songs for Teaching makes Raffi seem like an underachiever.

Speak Read Write covers these skills for ESL.

Teach Children ESL has chants and rhymes.

Teacher Tube offers strategies and links to Powerpoints.

Teaching ESL is a complete teachers' kit.

TEFL has some worksheets.

Tell Me More is a basic English Club packet.

The National Right to Read has a lot of resources on how to engage students and on phonics.

To Learn English has placement tests and at the bottom of the page is almost every topic you would need to cover in secondary education.

Topics Magazine has articles written by non-native speakers. Good for generating in class project ideas.

Ultimate Camp Resource is good for songs and team challenges.

Using English has a lot of material that can be adapted to textbook activities.

Holodomor

This time of November Holodomor memorial services take place throughout the country. Holodomor translates to "death from hunger". Holodomor was the artificial famine that occured in Ukraine and other parts of the Soviet Union from 1932 to 1933, somewhere between 2 and 10 million people died of starvation. It's officially been recognized as an act of genocide, though internal sways towards denouncing as well as supporting the Soviet Union have not cemented this issue within Ukraine. In recent years, several trials have taken place to decide how to depict the history of the Soviet Union and Stalin. As I've stressed before, history is critical for Ukraine and affects how it reacts to all challenges and forward steps.

Being in Ukraine for the past year, I've heard a few stories passed down from generation to generation about the famine. About family members who were lost, old friends becoming traitors, silos full of grain that couldn't be touched, journeys trying to escape and bodies spread along barriers fencing out peasants from the cities. A symbol of Ukraine is grain and bread formed into elaborate loves called korovai. In a sense, bread is sacred to Ukrainians and Holodomor has increased its meaning. During Peace Corps training we were told never to throw away bread, it could be one of the most insensitive things we could do. Another way I think the past has shown through is in the generational gap's approach to food. Never mess with a babushka trying to feed you, the idea of hunger is one of her worst enemies. On the other hand, as everywhere else, young women feel the pressure to be thin and I've witnessed too many times to count young girls refuse to eat. It's rather frustrating when you're the guest and they keep on shoving food at you but at the same time they're completely unaware of how their daughters are chronically skipping meals. The idea is still foreign to their older relatives.

The causes of the famine are controversial, from weak harvests to poor management and Stalin's campaigns of collectivization. During collectivization, grain was sent to the cities and abroad to finance industrialization. Ukrainian nationalism was squandered. As stated at holodmorct.org:

1932-1933
The Soviet government increases Ukraine's production quotas by 44%, ensuring that they could not be met. Starvation becomes widespread. Secret decrees are implemented that allow arrest or execution of any starving peasant found taking as little as a few stalks of wheat or a potato from the fields he worked. By decree, discriminatory voucher systems are implemented, and military blockades are erected around Ukrainian villages preventing the transport of food into the villages and the hungry from leaving in search of food. Brigades of young activists from other Soviet regions are brought in to confiscate hidden grain, and eventually all foodstuffs from the peasants’ homes.
Stalin states of Ukraine that “the national question is in essence a rural question” and he and his henchmen determine to “teach a lesson through famine” and ultimately, to deal a
“crushing blow” to the backbone of Ukraine, its rural population.


This past summer I listened to an EconTalk podcast about Nikolai Bukharin, included below are the tapescripts about the event:

14:12

In the late 1920s, Bukharin and Stalin spar over the collectivization of the farms, over the Kulak policy and the Ukraine. Most interesting part of the book for economists and political scientists; points out the clear relationship between violence and non-market allocation. Stalin did not like the peasantry--Marx had already warned against the peasantry. He thought the peasantry should give what he called "tribute" to the city. Bukharin and Stalin sparred over this term "tribute." The way to get this tribute would be to the prices of agricultural products very low, because in Marx you finance industrialization through some kind of surplus. So they were always considering from where the surplus was to come. Stalin said the surplus was from agriculture; the peasant must pay for industrialization and we'll make them pay by setting the price very low. Stalin and his cronies went about establishing a monopoly of grain purchases. Any economist will tell you that if you set the price low--and it was set even below the cost of production--no one is going to sell. Therefore, when the prices were set low, peasants stopped selling. Stalin would declare a grain collection crisis--political action of the peasants aimed against Bolshevik power. It wasn't economic, not just responding to incentives--it was anti-Soviet activity. His only choice, therefore, was to send the militia, secret police, party volunteers in the countryside and take grain by force. Confiscation. This is where he and Bukharin parted company. Bukharin in the early years belonged to a group calling themselves left-Communists, even more extreme than Trotsky; but then Bukharin had an epiphany at some point, which was the result of observing the success of the new agricultural policy which was based on private agriculture and private trade, that you are going to destroy agriculture and social cohesion if you place this burden on agriculture. So Bukharin argued that we have to have a private agriculture; have to let the market set prices; in this way we can avoid force in the countryside. So, this is what they were arguing about--in the Politburo, in the Central Committee. Learned from reading the transcripts of these meetings was they all understood what the game was about. At one point, thought they just didn't understand basic economics. Now I see they understood very well that you have a choice between voluntary exchange through markets and the application of force. That is what clearly split the two.

18:46

The Kulaks--5 to 7 million or so--what's the best estimate of the people who died? Hard to say; this is where our statistics are weakest. The official numbers are several million; several million deportees, high rates of mortality among the deportees. There weren't many executions during this period. Jail was the punishment of choice, 1930, 1931. Most of the victims were victims of starvation during the deportation. They were sent into remote areas of Siberia and Kazakhstan with no means of support. Also, in the area of the grain belt itself there was no food to eat. Looking step by step. First came collectivization and de-Kulakization--the deportation of all your good farmers. This created chaos in agriculture--bad harvests, and bad weather. Debate amongst scholars as to whether it was bad weather or mistakes or deliberate. Didn't they have 70 years of "bad weather" between 1917 and 1987? This was particularly bad; large numbers of deaths; between 5-10 million people died. A lot of debate, deliberate or not; Stalin wasn't particularly fond of Ukraine, which was where most of the deaths occurred. My own reading is that Stalin understood that if you lost that many people, you could actually lose Ukraine, so at one point he said, This is dangerous; We can't lose Ukraine. He tried a little bit to make matters better, but much too late. Also denied those in famine reasons the natural equilibration, which is to leave. So, road blocks were set up; you couldn't get on a train; they caught you and sent you back and you died. Terrible; there was a lot of cannibalism. Bukharin, who had already lost the political struggle, in 1930-31, traveled through Ukraine and saw he had no stomach for this. He came back and told Anna's father--his wife's father--who was his best friend, If this is what the Revolution brings, we should have had no Revolution. He'd seen starving children. Point about the old Bolsheviks: one of the prized traits that Stalin and his associates valued was being tough--not having any sympathy, having a strong stomach. Bukharin did not have this strong stomach.

While hiking this summer in the Georgian mountains, my friend and I stopped to have a lunch break and were then later joined by a group of Germans. One of them happened to be a producer of documentary films who focused on Russia and former Soviet states. When he found out that we were living in Ukraine, he mentioned that he'd been wanting to make a film for a long time about the connection between Albert Kahn, the German-born architect famous for designing industrial Detroit, and the grain shortages. According to the producer, the USSR had hired Kahn to revolutionize industrialization, building over five hundred factories at an enormous sum. The factories were funded by the grain exports. Briefly looking online, there is very little literature about this connection, and being that I'm obsessed with the skeletons of industry left throughout the Rustbelt and the former Soviet Union, it's definitely a tale I'd like to hear.


Last time I was in Kyiv I picked up a copy of The Harvest of Sorrow by Robert Conquest in the volunteer lounge. I haven't read it yet but I'm wishing I had done so by now so that I could properly outline the topic.

Upon a day Apart

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, the promise of being around people that understand you better than you do yourself without the pressure of Christmas or other holidays. In college, it was the saving grace from schoolwork, allowing me just enough time away to avoid turning into an essay-writing zombie.

This year was a lot harder than I expected it to be, being alone. Yes, I could have made it a lot better by doing my job as an example of America by sharing this holiday with my site but I didn't have the willpower to do so. There were no five minute gaps in the lessons where I could talk about it with my students. I dared not create a meal for my host family because any previous attempts have ended in ridicule (too spicy, it should look like this despite not knowing that I known what I'm doing...) and outside of my budget. I did however attempt to make a pumpkin pie, one for myself and one to share at the school. Unfortunately the crust on the one I was planning to share turned black within twenty minutes of putting it in the oven. I don't know what's that about. Since I've found that presentation is more important than substance here, I figured I'd save myself the embarrassment and just claim it for myself. Good thing because once my landlady came home and saw the piles of it in the fridge (a medium sized serving bowl) she freaked out about how much there was and how such a thing as pie from pumpkin can't exist. I guess I should have tossed half of it to the chickens to avoid suspicions but I really wanted it too. It's quite good, though heavy on the organic. I don't think I'll make a lifetime switch to carving and boiling my pumpkin anytime soon.

Peace Corps was nice enough to give us the day off at the last minute. I didn't feel like traveling over ten hours so that I could be with a few other volunteers for a meal since I had responsibilities on Friday at school. So instead I had a regular 8 to 6 with plenty of breaks made less depressing through the hope of being able to catch family online in the evening. Unfortunately, my Internet was down so I ended up doing a combination of work preparation that required little thought while tearing up to self-imposed sad music I associate with family vacations of the past. I think the entire day I ate an apple and a piece of pie. Yes, it was quite pathetic.



I do have a lot to be thankful for this year. All the generalized cliches run past me; thankful for being here and having this opportunity, thankful for people that support me through this exercise of always feeling out of place. I'm thankful for learning how to live on less than $2 of spending money a day (I don't count rent, heating, or my Internet bill). I'm also extremely thankful for (mostly) running water, Internet, and an inside toilet. Perhaps that's a low blow, but honestly having weekly electricity and water cuts has taught me just how distant I am from what supports me daily.

This is where I want to be today.

Courtesy of Justin Waldron

NYTimes, For Poor Russians, Blond Hair is a Snippet of Gold

I appreciated this article in the New York Times about poor woman in rural and central Russia selling their hair that will be used for extensions by the wealthy. The article mentions Ukraine several times. I don't know anyone who has done this but it wouldn't surprise me.

I often catch myself off guard, thinking that the standard of living around me is fine. Sure, it's not the same as what I grew up with but basic needs are being met. Then, I read something like this or hear about schemes to steal firewood and realize just how narrow my scope is. When the weather is nice I often walk around my village. Sometimes I take out my earbuds, surprised how my sound barrier warps what I'm taking in; makeshift electric wires, outhouses, children in holey itchy clothing having races with tire parts or dropping stones down into a well. As the author of Blood and Milk once put it, "poverty has texture," that's one reason why Western outsiders find beauty in it, romanticize about it. The attraction towards viewing daily struggles as a study is something I struggle with, perhaps because identifying with the people is too painful. I feel stupid in their presence, amazed by the solutions (and lack of solutions) made to address needs.

A Little Lost, Sometimes Found

I've been avoiding writing lately. Not quite sure why, perhaps a fear that I've lost the ability to communicate meaningfully. I fear my brain's lexical ability and dexterity is below average and on the brim of full capacity. With the utterance of a new word in Russian or correctly using Ukrainian zaps a GRE worthy word out of my short term memory space. When I type, I have to keep on backspacing because I'm writing phonetically. I feel stuck in limbo at site, not moving forward intellectually or in my relationships. The past few weeks I've been trying to think of new ways to quantify what progress I've made as a volunteer in my village. Yes, looking for results isn't easy and it's naive. Comparing myself to other PCVs and what they've been able to achieve is both motivational and a reason why I constantly question my role.

I'm proud of what I've been doing outside of my site with working groups and special events. In KO, I've done little outside of the classroom. That is, if I'm in a classroom. Lately, my lessons have been canceled left and right and it's hard not to take it personally. The worst is that for the past two weeks my school has been preparing for the visit of the oblast's education commission. Despite how top-down this society is, surprisingly the commission only goes to one rayon in the oblast every year, and since there are 25 in Odeska, the commission hasn't been to my school in something like 24 years. I can go on a rant about this easily. Instead I'd rather focus on my school's obsession with making cosmetic changes. I still don't quite understand why my school's administration felt so threatened about this visit, no one can explain it to me. If anything, they should be more worried about putting on airs around me. Someone said that Ukrainians love to treat their guests and because the commission is our guest, we must stop everything to treat them as such. So, a lot of shouting matches went down about the arrangements of plants and posters. Instead of lessons, students were out in the school yards raking and sculpting dirt, having sledding races by pulling each other around the school on old sweaters they use as mops. I got to say, I was impressed by how well put together the school looked. Displays that haven't been changed in 15 years were stripped down. Photo displays were added in all the corridors, making me feel less like I work in an aquarium.

I also blame this visit on my lack of starting anything new at the school. The grant I was working on all of September and October has evaporated, partially due to my lack of communication but more so because I can't find the support within the school to make anything sustainable. Everything here is a week by week fight, and anything that isn't of dire need in the present is pushed back further and further. I've learned to push for what I want, but often I don't think I'm in the place to do so. I'll take a few more days to assess whether or not I can have any side projects within the school during winter. If not, I'll enjoy having a little free time and put my effort towards tutoring and upcoming commitments.



Here's some photos of my school in the anticipation of being visited:

The lobby, sometimes student's art is up here. On the back wall there is a schedule of student events. I had no idea most of the stuff listed went on, despite asking all the time. I guess I should thank this inquisition for the streamlining of information within the school community.

A new addition to our school, shiny mass produced Silk Road pictures. The art of taste (and scale) is something that I'll never comprehend in this culture. I can't tell if it is original or a poor interpretation.

My favorite Mendeleev poster EVER.

The lovely girls of the 6th form.

In Ukraine there is a separation of the state and religion (religious freedom) but it is blurry.

Lastly, I read an article from The Economist (raging Saturday evenings) and I loved its opening line:

GERMANY’S eastern neighbours have long memories and short fuses.