STP-people | EVS/ESC Review #2
It's high time for the second-week review and I am ready to put all my impressions in words.
Briefly, this week was much easier as I became more confident in Polish (read below why), started exploring the city even more and stopped being too shy. As it says 'No time to hesitate!'
#1. SMM as my new goal to hit
I always felt that my writing skills should be used somehow but never knew how. That thought came to me when, while discussing the possibility of creating TKFest in Kharkiv, an organizer told me that the story I wrote was easy to read and of a good style. I thanked him but never tried to shape that skill into something more.
But now I know exactly what kind of skill I want to improve here in Warsaw! Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers (from Wikipedia). Big thanks to Valeriia Ponomarenko, who is a guru in this field and who helped me with the resources and literature to learn.
#2. Język Polski
The language course continues and for this week we got a great task of presenting our own cities. Of course, I used my lovely presentations to make my speech more interactive. However, I am not ready to spill the beans now as on Thursday, unfortunately, we did not have much time and my turn to speak about my city will be the following week. Hope everything will be great and the audience will fall in love with Kharkiv as I do :)
Another point here is that I've started learning the language using the books Fundacja presented to me. Now I work on the book Polski Jest Cool for A1 learners. The pack contains a student's book, workbook and CD with audios. A perfect set to learn the language yourself!
Actually, last year in September I started learning Polish too. I just decided to make my dream come true, downloaded full pack of the book Krok Po Proku A1 and kept learning! That practice was really useful and interesting! The only one thing I needed that time was speaking not with the computer but with real people :) Unfortunately, my self-education lasted for 5-6 months only because, apart of university education and work, I started to be more active in science and education field at the university and it took me more and more time. So, I had to sacrifice something. And that something became Polish :( Anyway, I am thankful for that time spent with Krok Po Proku A1 because now I start remembering all the stuff I learnt before!
#3. CEFR Testing
When you become an EVS-volunteer the program gives you access to OSL Online Platform where you can complete two kinds of testing. The first one is for you to understand your current level of the language (the language of the country you are going to be a volunteer in), find different tools for self-learning, etc. At the end of your volunteering period, you complete a final test, the second one. Thus, you can measure your progress of the language.
The test is quite simple in structure. It consists of 4 sections 10 questions each: Grammar, Vocabulary, Reading and Listening each of which is measured. At the end, you get an average mark of your language skills. Interested in what mark I got? :) B1!!! Speaking about each of the sections the levels are A1, A2, B1, B1 respectively. Of course, it was a big pleasure to see those two characters, but:
- this is only an average score;
- there is no speaking section;
- seems to me the test evaluates only general language, not an academic;
- there are only 10 questions in each section. To my mind, the particular skill cannot be measured by 10 questions only.
So I have lots of room for improvement!
#4. Buying Tickets
As I live not far away from the Ticket Office (it is a place where you can buy a week, month, season and other kinds of tickets) I got the task at Foundation to buy some for the group of STP-students (read about their visit below). This task became for me as if a challenge as you have to describe not only what you need but say a price. What do you use for saying the price? Numbers! And they are quite hard to pronounce in Polish, e.g. 30 – trzydzieści; 40 – czterdzieści; 50 – pięćdziesiąt :) But I was soooo happy when I got these four pieces of paper, means tickets! The manager understood me and I became one level up in my confidence to use the language :)
We become happier not only when some great things happen but when notice some small successes every day!
#5. STP Lódź
The finishing of the week was a nostalgic one for me as here in Warsaw we welcomed an STP-group of students. These active, goal-oriented and positive guys were chosen to become participants of Study Tours to Poland in Lódź and on October 13, 2018, they had a 1-day-excursion to the capital of Poland.
Together we spent a rich day in the capital: started with an excursion, walked along Krakowskie Przedmieście, visited Kosciol Świętego Krzyża, enjoyed Fryderyk Chopin's music and much more...
While the guys were at Kopernik Science Center we visited Warsaw University Library and opened my personal account there :) So, from now find me there at Biblioteka Uniwersyteta Warszawskiego!
The end of the day we spent with Niewidzialna Wystawa (Invisible Exhibition) - the place where you can live a small part of the life of the blind people. You walk into the room, the door closes and the only thing you can see is the darkness around you. From that moment your body becomes your eyes - your hands, nose, tongue... That exhibition is totally worth visiting!
I spent all that day almost as a participant of STP again - always in a hurry, many interesting places to visit and see, lots of great people to meet and so on. But there was one moment I realized that I was not a participant any more.
We were walking to the train with a group and I was talking to a girl from Ukraine. We discussed some places in Kharkiv as she studies there and wanted to know if there are some other interesting places to visit she didn't know about. And suddenly the team-leader said 'Guys, hurry up! Everybody on the train!'. The girl was confused as our talk was interrupted; then she said quickly 'Oh, gosh, aren't you going with us?' and I said 'No, I'm not. I'm staying here'.
Even if we feel as if everything is so similar, the same emotions, same places, same impressions, in reality, it is not. You are another person and you'll never get a chance to go back to what you had. So, that is why we have to enjoy every moment of your life!
All the best from EVS/ESC-wolontariuszka Ira Konoplianko.
Cześć!😉
