More about Our Work

The pictures, I mentioned taxis cost $1, this first picture is a taxi that is only cost $.50. In Shirvan we only have water every other day, so homes and apartments have tanks as above that store another day's supply. A second grade class that Linda is working with in contacting a second grade class at Park Hill, and a game I made - the Road to Baku. Each color X represents a category of question or English speaking exercise.

Some of the things we are doing in our work. I have 6 Conversation Clubs. I have 3 goals for the conversation clubs. First goal is to engage the students in speaking English. The people here learn grammar and a limited vocabulary, but can’t speak with anyone. They need to practice speaking. The second goal is to get them to think and reason. The residue of the Soviet educational system is that there is no encouragement for free thought or reasoning processes. The third goal is to find young people who will be leaders, cultivate their abilities that they may accomplish projects for the benefit of Azerbaijan.
The first club is MWF-10:00 with primarily college students. There is anywhere from 4 to 10 each meeting. There are 3 very good speakers in this group. The second club is MWF-11:00 and is 9 young women under the age of 25 and 5 are good speakers, and 3 of the 5 are excellent thinkers. There are 10 8th graders in my MWF-3:00, and they do not have good English skills, and I work very hard that hour. At the MWF-4:00 group has been up and down since I began. Now, I have 6 very good English speakers with 2 good thinkers. The fifth club is T/TH at 10:00 and is 4 8th grade boys, and again I work extremely hard. The 11:00 on T/TH has 4 college students, again female, and average in ability, but very pleasant.
My favorite session is the 11:00 MWF. This group of young women want to get things done. They will make suggestions and do any task I ask. One of the projects they are doing now is taking turns with one of our cameras. I ask them to take interesting pictures of anything they want.
The first to use the camera was a pair of sisters. I was so looking forward to seeing what they would choose to photograph. The came back 2 days later with 1 picture of a monument. I keep encouraging and each one takes more pictures than the last.
One goal is to get the students to think rationally and make deductions. As I said above everyone is so used to memorizing and reciting that free thinking and reasoning is uncommon. We were playing the game Road to Baku, and one of the questions was "How many computers are in this room?" The team counted and said nine. After they made their final answer, a member of the other team, Afaq, asked me if I brought my lap top as usual? I had not, but what good thinking, and sneaky too to wait until the other team had answered! I was so proud!
Another activity which provoked excellent discussion and thinking processes was "What Is It?" I brought objects that we have and asked "What Is It?" Everyone was fascinated by the head light. Other interesting things were: dental floss, hem ripper, multiple tool knife, beef jerky, canned cheese, battery powered reading lamp, hand sanitizer, and spice mixes. The most popular which everyone wanted was a ring of Linda’s. It is a silver ring that holds a stone like a small marble, and there are 8 interchangeable stones. I could have sold a million of them.
Another popular and excellent thinking activity is I write on slips of paper statements or questions, and the student randomly chooses and must discuss. After the first person discusses, everyone adds their thoughts. Questions like, "If you could speak to Barak Obama and Ilham Aliev, what would you say?"
One of the best responses I had was to "How long do you want to live and why?" One young man said, it is not how long you live, but the good that you do that matters.
Only God knows how long I will live, but I know how I can live for as long as I have.
I will write more later about the games that we use in conversation clubs. But now I want to thank someone special. I mentioned once on the blog about how the Azerbaijanis have no touch typing skills. Frank Saunders sent me a $20.00 program and I loaded it on the computers at the Central Library. We now have about 20 people working on their keyboard skills with the deepest gratitude of my counter part. My host family is using the program almost every day. I will be working to get keyboard skill programs in as many places and for as many people as I can.
Linda has 2 conversation clubs with 8th and 9th grade students, and teaches 15 hours a week. She has also started a Pen Pals project with college students. A student named Fidan was the first to successfully compose, write, and mail here letter. Linda has five more ready to mail their letters soon. The letters are sent to students in Archie, Missouri in care of Billie Limpus. Copies of the letters will be sent to Andrew for students in Harrisonville.
This weekend we are attending a committee meeting for the organization of this year’s Writing Olympics in Azerbaijan for students from the sixth grade through the fourth year of university. The competition was begun by a PCV in Georgia, and later was expanded to include Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, the PC had to evacuate all the workers from Georgia last year when the Russians invaded. Because Armenia and Azerbaijan are still technically at war, we will have only a competition for Azerbaijan this year.
The good news is that the PC will return to Georgia with about 50 Volunteers in June.