Fröbelstern

Sunday, November 3rd, 2013 10:09 am
mothwing: An image of a snake on which is written the quote, "My love for you shall live forever- you, however, did not" from A Series of Unfortunate Events (Geekiness)
It was Crocky's sister Teddy's birthday party yesterday, or rather, one of them- this was the "queer adult edition". I was reacquainted (do people still use this word?) with Crocky's and Teddy's older bisexual foster sister and Crocky's bisexual godmother. I've often marvelled at the fact that my MIL, who died in 1991, had so many queer friends and foster children, and then wound up having a bisexual daughter, too.

Teddy, my former Russian learning partner, is still at it because she's planning to spend a few months in that country on her world tour. I'm slightly jealous because I could never do the same. I'm worried for Teddy, too. Still, I hope she's going to have a great time touring the globe and will return home safely. She cooked a tasty dish from her Russian cuisine cook book for us.

We spent the time eating, laughing, and trying to fold Fröbel stars. which their foster sister brought. The English Wikipedia has this to say:

"Froebel stars are very common in Germany, although few people know how to make them."

To which I can testify- IRL I don't know many people who can do Fröbel stars. I know that my grandparents could make them and my mother can, too, but I am convinced that in my generation I think that only the incredibly crafty like [livejournal.com profile] angie_21_237 can do it- and the latter is the head of a kindergarten, so it's probably basically her job to know these things.
I have the shrewd suspicion that you talented flisties are probably experts at paper crafts happily fröbeling away, too.

We did end up with things resembling the stars, though and were quite proud of ourselves.

If you want to have a go yourself or need a refresher on how to make them, here's something that looks a lot like the directions we had:

mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
One of my students hates poetry, she says.

She doesn't want to have anything to do with it, whenever they're faced with poems in class everything about her speaks her dislike. Her body language, her expression, her moans, how she approaches the topic, the way she deals with it. She just doesn't like poetry and frequently expresses intense dislike when confronted with poetry, she's easily confused and frustrated, and doesn't see the point of dealing with it.

At first I thought it was that specific poem, which was admittedly rather obscure and gave them a second one the next lesson. Again, the same reaction. Frustration, lack of understanding of both content or why rhythm is important at all.

And then I gave her a poem in Russian, her native language. I wish I'd had a camera to capture just how quickly she snatched that sheet ouf of my hands, and how hungrily she read those lines, and how eagerly she engaged with the poem, and the translation provided below. She immediately had a plethora of opinions on this poem, too, I've never seen her that engaged with a poem- any text - ever before.

It was clear that this student, homesick, rejecting all things German, would appreciate the inclusion of her native language in class, but I had just never pictured just how much. I hope I can manage to incorporate the student's native language in German classes in future somehow.

A Russian dilemma

Thursday, February 25th, 2010 05:12 pm
mothwing: A wanderer standing on a cliff, looking over a distant city (Book)
I have a student I tutor who is difficult, mostly because she is homesick and really demotivated.

Homesick because she's from Siberia and she gets tearful whenever she talks about her home. Last time she was rendered incapable of participating in class for twenty minutes because she saw a map of Europe and the East lying about before class and spent five minutes looking at her former home, then sat there, brooding, sullen. She was so bubbly when she came in, and this is not the first time she said she'd remembered something from home and went quiet.

Demotivated because they're analysing poetry, and she can't be bothered because she doesn't see the point both of poetry, what the particular pieces I bring in are about (they're supposed to work with Romantic poetry, and the Golden Age poets are a good match for obvious reasons), and why analysis is a good idea.

Now I'm thinking about bringing in a few poems in Russian which deal with similar subject matter as the German poems we're doing in class. I'm not sure it's such a good idea because I don't want her to feel bad, obviously. Still, it'd be an excuse to pick a native speaker's brain on Pushkin in the original, and possibly even Achmatova, because she's obsessed with Stalin's Russia, although if anything is likely to depress her, this'd probably be most likely to.

До свидания!

Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 03:14 pm
mothwing: Gif of wolf running towards the right in front of large moon (Wolf)

No more Russian! 

No more translations to hand in by Friday, 4pm. 
No more last-minute printing in the library and running into people up in the Hetherington Building who had been handing in their homework just on time, as well. 
No more racking my brain and online dictionaries in search for obscure phrases and words no one apparently ever uses apart from the people writing learner's text books. 
No more leafing through the back pages of my coffee-stained Russian book, battered and old-looking as no book in my possession does, in search for a word. 
No more sitting in the back row with the three guys and the four guyettes which made this course as great, no more running into Kirsi. 
No more hanging around in front of the Hetherington Building for hours on end after the course with my two favourite smokers in this place.
No more stupid assignment which are actually doing the opposite from what they are supposed to do from a didactic point of view. 
No more attempts at motivating us from our darling teacher. 
No more grammar lessons!
No more lessons with Ms Terijezo.
No more progress tests "with a little help". 
No more getting our work back. 
No more reading Russian texts in a group.

No more Russian.  

I am not quite sure about how I feel about that. 

Sad, sure, but after this horrible exam, I am also partly glad. 
Well, more than just partly, I can tell you. Our darling teacher (that is no sarcasm, she is really awesome) had told us we would get a sheet with the words we don't know yet in the text. Well, there were plenty of words I for my part had never seen before, so either they were all in that one translation I did not submit (unlikely), or we just hadn't, which sounds far more likely, since the others did not seem to know any of those, either. 

It was really sad to see my wonderful Russian class for the last time, I had really come to love these guys. Most of them are going home for summer, sadly, and I didn't think about taking pictures of the guys until after the exam, when everybody was already gone. 

Boy, that was hard. The mock exams we had were absolutely nothing compared to this on, they were all fairly easy, this one had had least two constructions in them I was quite convinced we are not even supposed to know yet. Not sure I got them all right... Ah, well, can't be changed, now. I didn't quite finish with writing in ink the answers I had not been quite so sure about. Stupid as I am, I had them in pencil, and I guess that means I will not receive any marks for those answers. Which sucks. But then, maybe it's better, because who knows what kind of nonsense I came up with in those parts?

There was a whole passage which looked somewhat like this in my first version:  "Being the son of a _______ (fisherman??), he was not ____________ (with) to (?) hard work and thus ___________ so that he could (?!) ____________ with ________________. He went to Moscow and during that time he was able to __________ with lots of ____________ ."

Terrible, I can tell you. And I know I would have known the words, had we had them. I mean, yes, there were words I keep and keep forgetting, but these were none of those. Ah, well, we'll see. 

There is still the remote possibility that we were supposed to get a sheet with extra vocabulary but accidentally just weren't given. Or something. Well, not that likely, I know. 

And now? 

University over and the gigantic emptiness of two month ahead. Holidays as yet free of any preparations and obligations, except for seeing as much of this lovely island as possible while I still have the chance and time. 
And then? 
Applications for courses, again, online and offline, facing the uni life at home, again, missing so many of the people and teachers here, missing Crocky, academic half-life in the daze which hangs over our faculty at home... I want to stay heeeeeeeeeeeere.

mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Default)

That is the most boring class in the entire universe. Usually, we compared grammatical constructions and peculiarities in Polish, Russian and Czech. This might have been fun with a more sound knowledge of either of the three, but was useless for us who only started studying Russian in September.
It is also taught by Dr. Dunn, who is an expert on Russian Media and... well, he just does not seem to be a language teacher. This class was interesting in parts for me, because I have taken Linguistics courses before, but for most of the people there, who wonder about what cases are, it was just useless.

Today was the final exam in that course. Seeing him walk in with those scary mauve answer booklets alone gave me the creeps. But we needn't really have worried:

"Explain, with examples chosen from the language you are studying, why Slavonic languages are particularly difficult to learn for speakers of English."

Mwehehehe. I really should not have despaired with the didactic means of the man, teacher of the most boring class in the entire Uni. This is a topic really every student can relate to easily, and it gives them room to vent about why Russian is so terribly hard. Well done, Dr Dunn! There were other questions, but we could choose between that one and two of the other four.

Strangely, even that seemed to be rather hard for one or two of the guys ("What on earth is an accusative?" - "Were we supposed to learn the names of all the cases? Oh no!!").

Apart from that, how about a few pictures? 

These are a bit random, like this one:
Shores
Shores.

Pictures! )

... but there are always flowers:



Since I am lazy and did not manage to prepare anything, I'll have to miss the final session of my creative writing group... or do I go anyway...? To be entirely honest, I'd much rather go home and cook something, but then, maybe I will regret it later, because it is the last session and everything, and I may regret it later on if I do not go, and and and... but I have nothing to contribute, and it is somehow not really fruitful to just sit there. I can always comment on the amazing poem and short story the other guys wrote by mail. Sigh. I will miss these meetings, though.

We need a Creative Writing Society in Hamburg. AND a Photography Society. 

Guys?  

Mood Swinging

Wednesday, February 15th, 2006 02:33 pm
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Gate)
Caution, rant ahead, indicated by tags.
Caution, dangerous mood swing to frightfully good mood just below that.
Subject may be in an emotionally unstable mood today, probably due to too much Psy labs and dangerous levels of caffeine intake. And due to exposal to the Russian language.

[rant]
I am used to such things. If I come up with something, some idea which is halfway decent, there is always, always, ALWAYS someone who has researched the exact thing two years ago. Some even got prizes.
Yes, I am so uncreative I can only come up with thoughts someone else has had before. That is good in some cases, when I can be absolutely certain about finding confirmation of an idea I had because someone, somewhere, certainly has done something on the very topic, but sometimes it just DRIVES ME NUTS.
For example when my Professor holds a lecture about - well, what used to be my essay plan. Until today. That was MY. ESSAY.
Great. Now I can look for a new topic. Wonderful. Thanks Professor Cronin. Did you even have to use ALL the material I planned to use?
[/rant]

Sigh. I'll have to take a deep breath and just find something new. It's not as though there wasn't anything else to discuss. Still... Grrrr.

And then, there is the upcoming Lab Report for a Lab on short term memory. Boring, ghastly stuff.

Apart from these issues, everything is just lovely. Lovely, lovely Crocky. Lovely new haircut of said spouse. Lovely, lovely weather. Lovely university. Lovely courses. Lovely family. Lovely books.
Wow, I am beginning to sound like a child in the two word stage.
Where was I?
Books. Apart from Jane Eyre, the Horror. Lovely subscription to Blockbuster - I love movies. Lovely Russian course.
Well, not really.

Russian has become more and more difficult, but not really due to the course content, but due to the frequent changes of location and the increasing confusion of our Professor as to what we have covered already and what we have not.
She really ought to think about something as revolutionary as - dun dun DUN - a plan of the course content, possibly even with a timetable.
She is really lovely, but somehow, she is a wee bit disorganised at the moment. And she has been tempted to the Dark Side of the force by Dr. Dunn, meaning that she also has started making us chorus out the vocabulary.
We have not covered all the cases yet, but already we are learning useful phrases after which we have to insert said cases.
Not that cases are anything to be scared of, but for most people in the course, these seem to be quite hard and an explanation might be nice. She could just cover them before she teaches us how to say "This question was triggered by...", "In our time..." or "I order to answer this question...".
Not that these expressions are not very useful, but they will probably seem rather pasted in in an essay of someone who has to look up most of the endings for the cases and has a vocabulary of about 500 words. Max.

Alright, I guess I ought to move away from this pointless display of the content of my head - which is confused - and go back to my wonderful Lab Report. Working memory. Blegh.
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Gate)
Managed to get through my Russian Oral Exam alive and well. Whee!

It lasted only for about what, ten minutes? And was a lot less hard than I had anticipated.
I did mess up some of the cases, and once more it became more than plain to me how limited my vocabulary is, but that did not matter. Seriously, I fear for the final oral I'll have to take for my degree. I was so befuddled that I managed to mispronounce some of easiest words in the beginning and I think I might have mixed up some of the words. Which would be more than embarassing.

"Why do you live in Glasgow? Do you like Glasgow?"
"Да, я очень люблю Глазго. Глазго - краснaя город!"
("Yes, I love Glasgow a lot. Glasgow is a red lady-city!")

красный = red. красйвый = beautiful. And if you are sad and stupid and are reading the text with one eye while answering, you read the description of the flat (квартира, f.) instead of describing the city (город, m.).
Sigh. But hey, maybe I was talking highly meaningful political symnolism here, who knows...

I was more lucky than Barbara, however.
"Do you have friends in Glasgow?"
"I have a flat. It is big and cozy and has a window."

I wonder what kind of impression the portrayal of Russians in our class would make on native speakers. In our eyes, Russians permanently seem either to eat borsh or caviar, or to converse about the weather or the course of study people have taken, or, due to our very peculiar book, about whether or not they believe someone to be a millionaire (Have an example: book: "Well, having met him now for the first time and having seen him only for five minutes, what do you think about Peter?" - "I think he's a millionaire." - "Why?" - "He has just come in from London and he comes form Saransk. That's a big city. He's a millionaire.").

Another highlight of the day was finding out once more how confounding it can be to love a musician.
We are in the library. Occasionally, mobiles ring. One did, rather close to us, with one of those Nokia standard ring tones.
Suddenly, Crocky starts laughing and laughing and does not stop. After a while, my enquiring showed effekt:
"Did you hear that? There was a ritardando in that ring tone!!"
Musician's jokes... I was quite proud when I understood that one.

So, am in the library, busily studying for my three exams next week. Or ought to be.
16.01.2006 English Language.
18.01.2006 Psychology.
20.01.2006 English Literature.

And there's a house warming party tonight, one of the people in Crocky's choir has moved house and invited the whole choir plus significant others around.
We'll see.

Anyway, have a nice weekend! *hugs*
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Default)

You fit in with:
Humanism



Your ideals mostly resemble that of a Humanist. Although you do not have a lot of faith, you are devoted to making this world better, in the short time that you have to live. Humanists do not generally believe in an afterlife, and therefore, are committed to making the world a better place for themselves and future generations.


0% scientific.
60% reason-oriented.





Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com


I can live with that, I guess.

Any other news? Да, my Russian class has reached a new level of pointlessness.
We are reading dialogues.
Which is good.
In Russian.
Which is good.
After hearing the tape version, read by natives.
Which is good.
After having a read through the new vocabulary, which is always rather a lot and would impede direct acquisition, I'd say. Not sure if Stephen Krashen would share my opinion.
Which is also good.
In chorus.
Which is ridiculous.

And those dialogues are a wee bit artifical. They tend to go like: "Your passport, please." "My passport... Oh, no, where is my passport...? Ah. Here is my passport. There you go." - "Thank you. Are you Ivan Koslov?" - (No. It just says so in my passport.) "Yes, I am Ivan Koslov." - "Here is your passport." - "Thank you. I'd better put my passport back into my bag."

Ok. We got it, alright? Паспорт (which, in Latin script, would read: "pasport"). We are not entirely stupid.

We have also had a brief overview over the wonderful world of the cases.
Now, that was something of a confidence bost. Most of my fellow students were blanching at the idea of cases, as they had done the week before when we talked about the parts of speech. I thought I knew everything about cases. Hey, I am a German who has done a Latin course, right? No problem for me, case expert that I am.
Full of newfound confidence, I started discussing cases with my neighbour, and how scary the instrumental case looked. I did feel a wee bit intimidated when Kristi, who is from Finnland, told me that they have 14 cases in Finnish.

Right. Kristi = case expert.
mothwing: Image of a death head hawk moth (Default)
... beware. Never let yourself be taught a foreign language in Glasgow. It is great fun, that is true, but that is due to the language rather than the efforts of our teachers, really.
Remember everything they teach us at the university about how to convey the mysteries of a foreign language to another human being?

Everything you ever heard about comprehensible input, and second-language acquisition, the natural order hypothesis, the affective filter, grammar teaching methods, everything Krashen ever said, in fact?

Forget about it all and become a language teacher for Russian at this university!

Today, we have continued our work on the Russian alphabet and sound system and did so by:
1.) listening to our teacher introduce us to the individual letters, ("Oh, yes, the next letter is pronounced like this: 'ya!' The next one as 'zzzs', the next one..."),
2.) listening to him reading it out loud ("Once again, "Ivaaan", that means "John".),
3.) listening to him reading a list of words with the new letters in them,
4.) listening to him reading them out loud again, repeating the words after he said them.

Furthermore, we are using the "New Penguin Course of Russian" - if you ever want to learn Russian, be sure not ever to buy this book.

It makes me have an IPA consonant chart craving, and that kind of thing is surely not a sign of mental health. It made me even want a vowel chart.

Those were the longest 45 minutes at this university so far. Our teacher may be a very renown professor of Slavonic studies, but he clearly is not really a language teacher at heart.

So, da sveedanya and love to all! Got to go over to hear the best lecturer at this university, Katie Lowe, on Old English. Whee!

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