New pictures!

Above pics are me goofing around with some of my student's on the Nauryz holiday, hanging out with one of the costumed members of the Nauryz parade and with my friend Agii at the English olympiad. I owe the success of the project to Agii. He helped me with so much and without him it wouldn't have come together nearly as smoothly as it did.

Yesterday I was able to transfer pics from my camera's memory cards to my flash drive and get them onto my computer, thanks to a local photo and copy shop. I uploaded a lot of them onto Facebook and here are the links:

Mongolia 2009 part 2, new pics added to the album...now 60 total

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050468&id=72206395&l=40cdd51f35

Mongolia 2009 part 3, new album with pics from the English olympiad

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052360&id=72206395&l=0a10f832f3

You can just copy and paste these links into the URL or go down my blog to the section for the links to my facebook albums and click on the top two. I posted the links in that section as well.

Dancing

I can't believe I didn't see this video until a few days ago. This is one of the coolest videos I've ever seen.

Great success!

Well today we had the first (hopefully annual) 'Olgii English usage and General Knowledge Olympiad' and I have to say, things went very well. I woke up at 8:00 today and went to the hosting school, met with Agii and we spent the the whole day up until 2:00 preparing everything and getting ready. All of the schools participated and sent a team of four students. The setup was really great and even though we started about a half hour late(pretty good for Mongolia actually) and the first couple events proved to be a bit more challenging than we expected, overall it was a success. The students had a hard time with the general knowledge questions but a few outstanding students did very well. In the students' defense, they didn't have much time to prepare and we probably didn't provide them with good enough preparation or study materials. Next time I think it would be very beneficial to provide the students with a quality study guide. The vocabulary section was also a little confusing and difficult for many of the students but they still seemed to learn from it and enjoy the challenge. The grammar section, the singing presentations, and the 'words of wisdom'(proverbs) sections went very well and the judges, students, and participants definitely enjoyed them.

I was a judge and also the host or presenter for the whole thing and I really had a blast. Two of the local private schools secured 1st and 2nd place as expected but a public school fought their way into third place and came very close to winning. The winning students received framed certificates, cash prizes, and some really nice English books we ordered from Ulaanbaatar. I was able to speak to some of my students after the competition ended and they seemed very happy to have participated. I was very proud of my students and all the students that competed and I hope that we can improve on any of the issues and make next year's competition even better. I'd like to leave next year knowing that the students and teachers will continue to organize this competition each year without the assistance of a PCV.

In other good news, I spoke to the director of School 4 (public school that hosted the comp) and they are very interested in having me help out next school year. They have some hours available for senior students and we talked about the possibility of doing some more practical English classes or clubs. I'm also interested in doing some career planning, study abroad learning sessions, and TOEFL test prep classes. Many of the students here are very interested in studying abroad but have very little idea of where or how to go about pursuing these goals. This summer I will be meeting with the director and Agii to discuss how I can help the school starting in September. If I can spend my second year teaching and helping out a local school in addition to my work at the children's center I think I can get a lot of good things done and have a positive influence on a larger number of students.

Anyways, I took many more pictures today and I hope to get them up asap. I am going to a shop tomorrow in hopes of using their card reader to put my pics on my flash drive. If I can do that I will post the pics up before the end of the weekend. Hope all is well back home, pics coming soon!

All right stop what ya doin...cause I'm about to ruin, the image and the style that ya used to

Greetings followers, fans, friends and family members of Matt Becker. I apologize for the long delay in updates. A couple weeks ago I was sick with what felt like strep throat for about seven days. I was in bed and didn't do any work or teaching the whole week. After a few days when I wasn't getting any better I spoke to Peace Corps medical and I was able to start some antibiotics. Those really seemed to help and within a few days of starting them I started feeling better. Once I was back to my normal Matt Becker self I got back to the planning and coordinating for the competition I'm working on with my friend Agii and of course my usual teaching and tutoring. Teaching hasn't been as busy because many of my students are preparing for Mongolia's annual English 'Olympics' competition. The competition is actually today and tomorrow and students from all over Mongolia participate. It’s a pretty big deal and many of the students put a lot of effort into doing well in the Olympics. I have found it quite amusing that because of this my classes have been less busy(less students). My students, who are studying for an ENGLISH competition, seem to have completely forgotten the fact that they have a native English speaking American teacher available to help them any time of the day. I did have three students come to me for help and even one English teacher but the rest of my students seem to be lost on this fact.

Speaking of competitions, some of my students who are on the Olgii student council came to me a few weeks ago after finding out that I was organizing my competition. They told me that they wanted to organize an English or spelling competition and asked me to help out. I of course offered my help and gave them as much input and advice as I could. Surprisingly, they didn’t ask me for much assistance other than for some ideas and tips. A week and a half later, they told me their competition was going to be in a few days. I was surprised that they had everything organized so quickly. They asked me to come to the competition to be a judge and I agreed. I showed up to my work the day of the comp and was very impressed and excited to see a large group of students, a very well organized setup, and two of my best students very much in control of the situation. The girls, Gulim and Asem, who have been my students since August, worked together with the other student council members, various students and World Vision (NGO) to set everything up and get the necessary funding and supplies.

Students from seven of Olgii’s ten schools were present and competing. The comp consisted of teams of students who had to complete a variety of tasks, mostly in English, which is many of the students’ third or fourth language. Each team had to give a team introduction in English, there was a spelling bee section, an English song section, an art section (judges would describe something in English and the students had to draw what it was), and a writing composition and speaking section. The competition lasted a couple hours and both the participants and spectators seemed to really enjoy it. A few of my students were in the competition and they did very well. Myself and another English teacher, my friend Kulshat, were the judges. I had a blast judging the competition, watching all the students compete, and seeing how well my students did in putting together the whole event. I was so proud of my students and it was one of the best days I’ve had since I came to Mongolia.

Going back to the comp that I am organizing….almost everything is finished as far as the planning and organizing goes. The comp is next Friday and will involve teams from nine of Olgii’s ten schools. We have computers, a projector, a giant room with desks, tables and chairs to use, funding for the prizes and refreshments and we’ve made flyers advertising everything. Last week Agii and I went to all the schools and gave the directors invitations and explained the details. This week we just have to pick up the supplies and finalize the questions and curriculum. We are calling it Olgii’s first annual English practice and usage Olympiad. The purpose is to encourage and motivate students in their English language and general knowledge learning, to make it more fun and interesting and to introduce practical uses of the language instead of them just having grammar pounded into their head all year long. Laura has told me that some of her students are really excited and preparing for it and I’ve had a few of my students asking me about it as well. I’m very excited to see how everything goes and to see how well the students perform. I will be sure to take pictures and post up the outcome when it’s finished.

Speaking of pictures, my camera is currently having some issues. The autorun feature isn’t working with my laptop so I haven’t been able to move any of my pics from my camera to my computer. Matt + technology + Mongolia = nothing good. As soon as this problem is fixed I will post up many more pictures. The weather has been great in Olgii lately, it’s warming up, the ice on the river is completely thawed and summer is right around the corner. I’m really looking forward to my trip home this summer and seeing my family and friends for a few weeks. I hope everyone is doing well back home, take care.

Nauryz

Today is Nauryz, the Kazakh new year and one of the biggest holidays for the Kazakh people. This morning I went to the square, where they had a big parade and the Mongolian president made an appearance. I thought it was cool that the president came out to Olgii for Nauryz until I learned that there are elections coming up in May and more than likely his reason for showing up was purely political. Anyways, the parade and festivities were pretty cool and fun to watch. I've never seen so many people in one area in Olgii at the same time. Olgii has roughly 30,000 people and there were thousands today in the parade and watching the parade. There were some gers set up in the square and I guess they were selling tea and food and maybe some other things, I didn't check any of them out. The parade consisted of a number of different groups of people, everything from the students and staff of each school to petrol station workers dressed in matching uniforms to the eagle hunters riding horses and making their eagles flap their wings. It was pretty cool and I took some good pictures.

After the parade is over, the big thing to do on Nauryz is to go visit friends and family all over town to eat a special holiday soup, drink tea, and socialize. I went home for a little bit to get some water and sit down for a sec before heading out to visit some people. My supervisor, the director of the children's center, called me and I got the impression he wanted me to come to his house. I walked to the other side of town and on the way ran into four of my students(Talgat, Bauka, Bata, and Altinbek...four of my students who I teach and play football with on Tuesdays and Thursdays), who let me know they wanted me to come to one of their homes, or so I thought. They walked with me to my supervisor's home and I discovered that nobody was there...so I went with my students to one of their houses a few blocks away. While I had originally thought I was just going with all four students to Altinbek's house to eat and drink tea, I ended up first going to Bata's house, then to Altinbek's house, then to Talgat's house and finally to Bauka's house, eating lots of meat and snacks, drinking a lots of tea and soup at each house. I met many of my student's family members and got to kinda see how they live, which was interesting. On my journey all over Olgii to these four houses I'm pretty sure I saw more of Olgii in two hours than I have in 8 months. I also learned some new roads, alleys, paths, and shortcuts which could prove to be helpful in the future.

After leaving my students I headed to the square to meet my friends Linda and Rike(the German girls) and my friend Agii(English teacher I'm working on projects with). Agii invited us to his home for soup and tea, he picked us up in his jeep and we spent a couple hours talking with him, his mother and two of his friends. It was a pretty fun afternoon. After leaving Agii's the girls went to meet with another friend and I went to meet one of my other students, Gulim, a girl who I am helping work towards studying in the U.S. I went to her home and had more tea and soup, talked with her for a while and then headed home, tired and full of soup and tea. Overall it was a really fun and interesting day. Like I said I took a lot of good pictures and I should have some of them up later tonight. I will probably make a new album on facebook and put up a link to the album asap. Hope all is well back home.

Updates on project work to come sometime soon.

Kazakh Language/ Қазақ тілін

The Kazakh language...spoken by the majority of the citizens of Olgii. A large portion of the population speaks Mongolian, many speak Russian, some speak Turkish, and a surprising number of fluent or close to fluent English speakers. The majority of the English speakers are either English teachers, summer tour guides, or both. I have done a pretty good job of locating and befriending a number of Kazakhs who speak English which is good and bad. It's great because I am able to make friends, make some connections, and it's my best bet when trying to get projects started. It's bad because it never really gives me an opportunity to practice my language skills. When I am teaching, I mostly teach English so I only use basic Kazakh phrases if I need to explain certain things and I will occasionally refer to my dictionary which only has a few hundred words and sometimes doesn't have the correct word. I have a tutor who I used to meet with two days a week, she's the second tutor I've had since I arrived in Olgii. Now she has a busier schedule so I'm only going once a week. I learn a lot of vocabulary and basic, simple phrases and I'm attempting to learn the grammar..which maybe the most difficult thing I've ever tried to understand.

My Kazakh tutor, who speaks fluent English (her 4th language after Kazakh, Mongolian, and Russian) has even said that Kazakh grammar is more difficult than English grammar. I have always heard about how English is a rough language for some people to learn because there are so many things that don't make sense and so many words that mean many different things. This is definitely the case with Kazakh. Every time I think I have a grammar concept down, I will put together a sentence only to be told by my tutor that I had a word ending incorrect, haha. It's pretty frustrating and sometimes I just wonder if I'm one of those people who can't learn languages. That being said I am not giving up just yet. :)


I understand Kazakh much better than I do Mongolian and I have a good grasp on basic everyday phrases and words but outside of that, my language is pretty limited. I know how to bargain at the market, I have no problems buying things and I get around pretty easily for the most part. I'm sticking with the tutoring and trying to study more often because I know that a better grasp on the language will make the second year of my time here much easier. One thing that is a little discouraging, and I'm sure some volunteers in the rest of Mongolia can understand this, is that Kazakh (or Mongolian) isn't a language that is really spoken outside of this area. Sure Kazakh is spoken in western Mongolia, Kazakhstan, small parts of Russia and China, but it's definitely not an international or 'in demand' language like Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Mandarin, or English(luckily I've got decent grasp on this one). Because of this I've considered sticking with Kazakh for the rest of this year and then possibly getting a Russian tutor and starting to learn Russian my second year. I know there are a couple other volunteers that chose to get tutoring in Russian instead of Mongolian. The languages are similar and I already understand the cyrillic alphabet. I don't know for sure that I will do this but it's an option I'm thinking about.


Anyways, I got done with my Kazakh lesson a couple hours ago and just thought I'd make a blog post about it.

Hair Blog

I haven't had a haircut since the first week of July 2008...my hair is getting pretty ridiculous, a few more months of growth and it will be the longest hair I've had. Any suggestions? I'm thinking maybe dreadlocks, haha.