Language Cafe at Prus

Today, we visited Zespół Szkół im. B. Prusa w Pułtusku with Chien for Language Cafe meeting.

 We started with an introduction of ourselves. We talked about our background, volunteering and the project which brought us to Pułtusk. We also wanted to get to know the students, so they have introduced themselves as well.

After that, we showed some pictures from Turkey and Taiwan. We have given some general information about our countries and cultures. They were really interested in the pictures we showed.

Chien talked about Taiwan and the most famous cities, foods and drinks of her country. It was pretty exciting to learn about Taiwan. 😅

Then I have started talking about Turkey. I showed them some of the cities, typical Turkish breakfast, Turkish coffee and the very popular Turkish series 😹 It was funny that most of their grandmothers are watching those series.

After we introduced our countries, they wanted to learn some phrases in Chinese and in Turkish language. It was great to see that they were really interested in our culture. Then we taught them some basic words and sentences in our languages.

They all tried to pronounce the words correctly and to be honest, they were pretty good at it! 😍

It was a great meeting for both of us! ✌ We are looking forward to meet them again.


-Hande Ozdemir

Monday-Funday at Golądkowo

Today, Tudal, Cesar, Chien,Sylwia and me visited a high school in Golądkowo which specializes in agriculture. We had a meeting with the volunteers club and some of the teachers.

First, we have introduced ourselves and talked about our background. We also shared our opinions about Pultusk and the volunteering experience. Then we have started getting know the students better and learned what they study in the school.

 We have talked about volunteering and we thought about how we can do something together with their volunteering club. 

At the end of the meeting, we played Speed dating game where we got chance to talk to the students one by one. We asked them a couple of questions to know them better. At first, they were a little bit shy but later on the game started to be very fun for all of us. 😄

After we finished, the students showed us around the school. It was very interesting and well-designed.

 

                  

😸We all hugged each other and said goodbye until the next meeting.


-Hande Ozdemir

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The new volunteer, Hande!

Hi!

      

         I’m Hande. I am 24 years old. I’m from Izmir which is the third biggest city of Turkey and it locates in the west part of Turkey by the Aegean Sea.  I have studied English language and literature and I have graduated a year ago. I have worked as an English teacher at some private schools in my city Izmir. I have gained experience with kindergarten, primary and secondary school students. I like working with both age groups even it may be difficult to communicate with the kindergarten kids sometimes J However we had so much fun together, even they don’t understand me all the time. We were singing songs, playing with flashcards, making handcrafts and sometimes watching animations in English. They really liked the activities we had done and they started learning the language eventually. At least, they were familiar with the basic daily words that I was using every day and they were able to answer my questions in English.

               

          In my free times, I like reading books and watching series. Since I have studied literature, I am familiar with most of the masterpieces of English and American literature. I also like to cook. I really like to try new recipes. Mostly, I cook Turkish traditional dishes but I also like to try something from different cuisines. Sometimes I can fail but at least I try to do my best J Another thing that I like to do is taking a walk or running in fresh air. I try to go and take a walk by the sea every day. Also I like to travel and explore new places. I like to meet new people from different cultures and introduce my culture to them.

        I really like to participate in cultural exchange activities. I went to Romania as an Erasmus exchange student and I lived and studied there for one year. I have met lots of great people and we had so much fun together. Also, last summer, I went to USA for work and travel program. I worked there in a restaurant as a waitress. Again, I have had very good friends and I have learned a lot. Each day, I was exploring something new. I could have the chance to compare my culture and the new culture that I’m living in. I also had chance to introduce my own culture to people from different countries.

        After one year of working as a teacher, I wanted to participate in a voluntary project. I have heard about European voluntary services when I was in Romania for my Erasmus. Then, I have started researching about it and decided that it is very interesting for me since I really like social interaction and intercultural environments. After I decided that I want to be a volunteer, I have started looking for projects on the database of European Solidarity Corps. I have applied for some of them. I wanted to find one which works with students mostly. Then I finally have found which really attracts my attention and luckily they accepted me. Now, I am a volunteer at International Youth Exchange and Voluntary Service Centre in Pultusk. We are promoting volunteering and we do activities with the kindergarten and high school students and seniors. I believe that it is a great opportunity to take part in such activities because it brings people together as a community and improves us in many ways. It is a good way of self-realization and also a nice opportunity to learn how to be respectful to the differences. 

     
        I am so excited for this 11 months :)


        -Hande Ozdemir



       This project is funded by European Union.

On-Arrival Training in Warsaw

Dear people,

Yesterday morning I arrived back to Pułtusk after an unforgettable week in Warsaw. Last week, all the new EVS-volunteers in Poland gathered in Warsaw for the on-arrival training. The atmosphere was highly international as the participants were from many different countries, i.g. from Finland, Spain, Italy, Greece, Germany, Portugal, Hungary, Czech Republic, Turkey, France and Austria. It's usually quite easy to get to know people in this kind of group, because the wide variety of cultural backgrounds is pretty much an eternal source of conversation. 

The goal of the training was to prepare the new volunteers for EVS, teaching them how to face challenges and accept the reality; not all of the stay is going to be a bed of roses. Besides, we learned a lot about the Polish culture. Not only did we discuss how it looks like to a foreigner, but also were explained the historical reasons behind the intriguing cultural aspects. For me the most interesting task was to go to the city to interview real Polish people and find out their views on various topics.

We worked on the topics in many different ways, also by doing handicrafts

The trainers had also organized us two nice surprises. On Tuesday evening, a local guy took the volunteers for a walk and told the stories behind certain Varsovian monuments. Unfortunately I couldn't join the walk, but I heard it was truly fascinating. On Thursday evening an excellent traditional Polish dance group entertained us for a couple of hours, and we even got the chance to try some simple Polish dance moves ourselves.

The whole training was well-organized and the discussed topics were certainly important for the new volunteers, most of which had never spent a longer period abroad. I personally enjoyed the explanation of the Polish culture the most. The things about the challenges of living abroad were nothing too new to me, since this is already my fourth time abroad for a longer period, but hopefully I could contribute to the conversations somehow. Another great thing about the training was that we had quite a lot of free time to get to know the city, meet Polish people and eat Polish food.

The dance group made us dance

My personal view of EVS,  I was glad that the trainers let us visualize our feelings about EVS in our own way

After the week we all felt more motivated to do our best in our projects, so I'd say that the training was succesful.

Yours,

Petja

Language café

Last Thrusday we organized a language café in the Magdalenka Restaurant, so that local people could practise their English and get to know something about our cultures. It was a perfect day for the first language café, because that day pretty much everyone was happy due to Fat Thursday, or as we foreigners called it, the National Pączki Day, when everyone eats lots of tasty Polish Pączki. Before the event I was a bit worried if anybody would show up, but my worries proved unnecessary as a nice bunch of people eventually strolled in.

Pedro's Game

There were three tables, each of them hosted by a volunteer leading the discussion. We had some truly pleasant conversations, and the topics varied from our homelands to disco polo, trains and pączeks. After having talked for about an hour, we united the tables and played some games in order to encourage also the shyer people to use English. Everyone got a sticky note with a name of a renowned person on their foreheads. Then they had to figure out their identity by asking questions that can be answered with a yes or no only. The game was a lot of fun and everyone got a chance to speak. Time flew, and suddenly the clock was already 6 pm and it was time for the linguistic after-party.




What's more, next week it's happening again, so don't miss it!

Yours,

Petja