What have I learned?
Discussion of Learning
Alexandra Jones T00664293
- Communication
Communication has been a big thing I have had to learn in my adult life. In my youth, I was really terrible at communicating my feelings or ideas. Around the age of 17 (also the age when I left home), I was determined to improve my communication skills in any way possible. I was very quiet and shy when I was young; I spent alot of time by myself in my room and I wasn’t overly interested in having friends. In my adult life my relationship with my family was initially not very strong as well, because I never had very good communication with them either. When I was living on my own, starting from the age of 17, after highschool, I tried harder to communicate with anyone I could, and pushed myself to be more outgoing and communicative. I lived in Vancouver for around 3 years, in which I was totally on my own, and was forced to figure out my way through the world. It was my first real experience when I had to fend for myself and learn to earn money and try to make connections with people, because I had no family or friends around. I ended up making a few very close friend who I still communicate with today in Vancouver. My old boss from a restaurant I worked at the time sometimes e-mails me also. After living in Vancouver, I decided I wanted to push myself to learn French and try a new city, so I made the move to Montreal, without being able to speak French. It was difficult to find work in this circumstance when I didn’t speak one of the main languages needed to have a public job, even in a simple fast-food restaurant. I was initially living with some Bengali friends of mine, and usually I was around their mother who did and doesn’t speak perfect English. We got on well, even without completely understanding each other all the time. She adopted me as the daughter she never had, a relationship beyond ethnicity or culture. During this time I found a job as a housekeeper for an English-speaking Jewish family in Montreal and was cleaning their house five days a week for six months. It was difficult for me to communicate in Montreal from time to time. After living with my Bengali friends, I went to live in the ashram with Mother Akuti, who was French Canadian, but spoke good English. I learned to communicate better in French while in Montreal, but not really well because everyone spoke to me in English all the time! I decided to take 3 months to go to France and live in the temple there. Within three months, my French ability skyrocketed, because I was in an environment where nobody spoke English. It was great. But the end of my stay, I was translating for any foreign non-French speaking guests who came to visit the temple. There were often foreign students visiting from the university. I also had the opportunity to translate a book by the temple priest from French to English, as he didn’t speak any English.
Overall, I think it’s travelling which has helped me the most with communication. I realise my blockage with communication in my youth was due to being overly self-conscious. Travelling and meeting new people has helped me realise that just as I was afraid of what people thought of me, people were also afraid of what I thought of them. I don’t worry about any maljudgement from most people these days, I try to live my life peacefully.
In China is was difficult of communicate as well, because of the language barrier. I became accustomed to using my phone to translate, a tool which I also use sometimes in Ukraine, even to communicate with my family here. When a translator is not available, it’s necessary to use any words I know, along with gestures to communicate. It may not always be effective, but it certainly proves to charm the hearts of many, and I think this is an important quality when making relationships with people who don’t speak your language.
My husband has been the main person to push and help me re-bind my relationship with my family again. Previously, my relationship with my mother was never very good. He is very close with his mother, and in the beginning of our relationship he encouraged me greatly to form a better relationship with her. His encouragement has been really helpful, and my mother is even planning on coming to visit Ukraine soon, for the birth of our new baby in November.
Aside from my personal life, my work life is greatly composed of communication as well, seeing as I currently work as an educator. I also thank my husband for giving me the inspiration to become an educator, as previously I was thinking I would pursue a career in care work/nursing. My husband is an English teacher, and encouraged me to also teach. Before him, I didn’t know the world of teaching ESL abroad existed. Through teaching, I have greatly learned to improve my communication in general, a skill which I was lacking before. I have learned how to clearly explain my ideas for students to understand, and also how to give proper answers to questions my students may have. When working with students who really don’t speak much English at all, such as kids, I have learned how to communicate through my body language and facial expressions.
What is shown in my evidence 1.1 is a compilation of different videos of my online teaching. I began teaching during the Covid-19 quarantine; so far it’s been a greatly rewarding experience. My success in online teaching is a result of all the good communication practice I’ve had. I can safely say that without the in-class practice in Ukraine and China, I wouldn’t have the confidence or wits about how to conduct good online classes for my students. What I’ve learned from the classroom has been transferred over into cyberspace. At this point I can communicate well with various types of students. The online platform Preply also gives me a chance to utilize all the marketing skills I learned while working in China. In China I learned the importance of self-image and self-marketing, as well as being personable with clients/students. In China I developed the mindset of “good customer service- so the customer stays”. This is very important when being self-employed/freelance, because each student is my “bread-and-butter”, so to speak. I would say that I have learned good business communication from being an online freelance tutor, seeing as I am my own product. When students contact me, I try to assess their needs and cater to their interests. I try not to over-speak and give away too much unnecessary information. I know that my students (and parents of students) are interested in really learning English, therefore I try to communicate with the students the best I can to find out their needs and meet their learning goals. For example, I have one young student who is 4 years old. We have online classes and at first it wasn’t easy for him to open up and feel comfortable, because he is so young and didn’t know me. I have always kept open communication with his mother about what his learning needs are. This year he will not be starting kindergarten because of the Covid-19 pandemic, therefore I am his main teacher. As per the request of his mother, and also my expertise of knowing what young learners need to learn, he has learned all his ABC’s and 123’s from scratch, and now we are working hard on more complicated material such as phonics, days, months, higher numbers, etc.. I always try to keep open communication with his mother on a regular basis. We update each other on what we are training him in (she at home and me in class). So far I think he is one of my greatest success stories with online teaching. I work with him 5 days a week.
The above story can also be applied to my evidence 1.2- Teaching Young Learners. I started teaching young kids in China, and the training there was intensive. We (the teachers) learned the importance of communicating with parents as well as the kids. To teach kids, you must learn how to create interesting and fun learning plans, and have structure as well as have a fun communication style with the kids. We would often use songs and dances in the classes. The kids have fun and are entertained. What I have learned about communicating with young kids is that you must play with their imagination. It’s important to target their interests and play with them. Kids often obsess over cartoons or other story-book ideas. To make them love you as a teacher, you must learn to joke and laugh with them, and even if they don’t understand English at all, it is possible to communicate with them through sound and action. For example, while I was in China, sometimes the little boys had fun play-fighting ninja style with me, and sometimes the little girls wanted me to dress them as princesses or butterflies. Once they learned I was friendly by communicating by means other than words (moreso through play), they would come and sit with me and try to speak to me (in which case… I didn’t understand much, but I would smile and say “uh-huh” and try to encourage them). In most cases, what my Chinese colleague would translate is that the kids would tell me personal things which were important to them- like scraping their knee or going on a family vacation somewhere. When communicating with the parents in China, I also had to learn how to handle myself. The parents would often have demands from me and I had to learn how to sometimes calm them down or make their expectations more realistic. As I mentioned before, a lot of what I learned from teaching in China has crossed over and made me a better communicator, especially in my work field. I am more confident in pushing my students to learn- I am not afraid to ask parents or students what they need, and also to tell them what they should be doing at home for homework and improvement.
Evidence:
1.1 ESL Teaching Online
1.2 Teaching Young Learners
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2. Teamwork and Leadership
In my years since highschool, I have learned how to work well in teams, something which I was never very good at when I was young. Living in an ashram situation taught me how to listen to my elders and work together with others when working on projects. Without this main ashram training I had, I don’t know if I would have ever stopped being so stubbornly independent. When I was in the ashram, the younger girls were always expected to listen to the head mother and work together to organize the temple. So there is a hierarchical system of some sort, but mainly these roles are in place to make sure everything runs smoothly, similar to a system in a family or enterprise. This practice of teamwork has really helped me in my work life also. When working in ABIE in China, it was really important for us to be totally synchronized as a work team. We planned events together as a whole staff team of more than 20 people. Everyone had a chance to contribute to the discussion, including foreign teachers. We were always searching for new ways to make our school better. For the foreign teachers working in the school, we were always paired with a Chinese local teacher to help assist our class, because the kids don’t understand any English, so it wasn’t really possible for me to be independent while teaching classes. Outside of the classroom, in the office, foreign teachers and local teachers were always expected to work together to make detailed lesson plans for the kids. Also, detailed plans were drawn up for special events also. I was often running special events for the kids and parents, and we had alot of fun. In our meetings we were brainstorming, sourcing materials and even going shopping for materials together. Also, it was helpful to have two teachers in classes because the class is full of small kids with no parents- therefore the kids need to feel they will be disciplined if they act too crazy. Teamwork was also important when I was working as a care worker, because we often had to lift our client with a spinal cord injury, as she couldn’t move. Sometimes multiple care workers would be working on the same shift at once, or we would be going to take our client out on the town, or on vacation together. For the client with the spinal cord injury, she was very heavy and could not move, use the toilet, bathe, or cook by herself. She was mainly bed-ridden. In the morning three or four girls had to work together to life her out of bed, and do her morning washroom routine. There were often four or even five girls working in the house at once. A few times, I went out of town (London) while working as a care worker. One time another family with disability wanted to attend a family wedding in another city, and I was working together with another care worker over that weekend. The work was non-stop and we assumed different duties (and barely slept) over the course of the weekend, also also got to participate in a fabulous Indian wedding while working.
The element of teamwork has also crossed over in to my married life, of course. I really thank my ashram training for making me so tolerant and patient with others, and also when dealing with inter-cultural relations. There are often greatly frustrating times when living with my husband and his mother. It’s not easy to live with in-laws. We share everything in our home; food, money, space. In Ukraine the culture of the family clan is really important, so teamwork is definitely necessary at every moment.
As for leadership, I have been a leader in many of my endeavors of my adult life. To start, in many of my working environments, I have been a model employee who my employer often uses to help motivate others, or to show my example of how we should be working. In China, I was one of the leading teachers in the school, with alot of interest from parents for their kids to attend my classes. I had alot of sign-ups for my class, I was one of the two most popular foreign teachers in our training center. Due to this, myself and my colleague were both appointed to be contestants in a China-wide competition held by our parent company, ABIE China. Normally, I was living in a very small town and we had a very small ABIE center there. I went with my colleague (and husband) to Shanghai for a weekend to participate in the “Show Out” teaching competition. There were the best teachers from all around China participating in this competition. Our center didn’t win any prizes, the winners were mainly locals from Shanghai. But, the fact that our little unknown center was able to participate was already a great achievement, especially since we were so far away from Shanghai and in a 3rd-rate Chinese city, where the mentality is much less competitive than in a 1st-rate city like Shanghai or Guangzhou.
In my evidence 2.1, I show some of my photos from when I was working in China, as well as a commercial we made for the school. What I learned in China, even more than anywhere else I have worked, is the importance of working together as a work team. Previously in other jobs, I would try to be more independent. In China, it wasn’t possible, because the work culture is highly communal. We worked many long hours together, and also went on outings together. In my work throughout my life, in school or at work, I have always had an independent streak and also a desire to show that I am the best on any team, because I work very hard. In China I learned how to be less of an independent lone wolf, and more of a strong leader in the team. In team meetings, the staff manager would often turn to me for input, and sometimes I would be giving ideas while much of the other staff sat silent. When picking a Chinese co-teacher for my class I always tried to pick different teachers to better get to know them and their teaching style, and also to rehearse our classes together and learn about each other’s teaching style. This experience of working together in a teaching/corporate environment in China has taught me a lot. I brought it back with me to Ukraine. When I came back to Ukraine in February 2020, I began to work at an English training school in Kiev (called DEC School). It was a similar format, where the foreign teachers had to co-teach with the Ukrainian teachers (though not in the same class at the same time). It was necessary for us to communicate about what was happening in our classes and keep a schedule of what the students were learning (which point where they at in the textbook, what are their strengths and weaknesses, etc). I was not intimidated by this process at all because of my previous experience in China (though, if I were to work there before my experience in China, I think I would find it really intimidating).
In my evidence 2.2, I have included a slideshow about a team project my husband and I are working on in the village where we live. This artists’ center was originally founded by a group of painters local to the small town, but we have become involved. We are a group of creative young friends, and we have big dreams for our center. Despite the Covid-19 quarantine, we have held some small events there. We split the cost of the rent there and make sure everything is paid on time. We all try to support each other’s projects in this center. It’s a multi-purpose space. One girl is organizing a film night, another has a freelance “brow-bar” (she is an eyebrow specialist), and some of the guys there are painting and creating during other days. My husband is doing English tutoring out of this center, and so far he has been quite successful. Since there are so many things going on in this space, it’s necessary for all of us to keep open communication and arrange time slots amongst ourselves. Actually, it is not such hard work to promote our little center, seeing as we have so many people involved. We are always inviting guests, even from out of town, to come and visit and potentially host master classes or other events. As time has gone on with this center, we have narrowed down our list of participants/contributors to a main few, and we (my husband and I) are among the main few managers/promoters of this space. The other main party is our friend Ljuba, who we frequently communicate with about management topics. What I have learned is that in a collective project, it is very important to keep open communication with everything, from money to schedule planning. A recent factor which we have been discussing is the new arrival of some young men as neighbours to our center, who say they want to open a nightclub in the same building. At this point we are discussing what our plan of action should be if there is any conflict between us and them. We are even looking at new property in case of such event. So far this project has been rewarding for all parties and we hope to keep expanding.
Evidence:
2.1 Photos from my work in China
2.2 Photos from Perriyaslav Artists Center, Ukraine
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3. Information Gathering and Organization
Research has been an important part of several different places I have worked. When I was studying in VCAD (the Visual College of Art and Design of Vancouver), research was of course needed for my courses I was taking. We were design students, which means we were constantly sourcing information about whatever the topic may have been- like Fashion History, Trends, and influences for our work as well. We had quite alot of different tasks. We often had to make vision boards and organize our time, materials, and presentation materials for our classes. Shortly after I left the institute, I worked as a “picker” in a clothing warehouse. The job was intensive and needed alot of research on my own time. I had to research brands and styles which would have been desirable for the shop I was looking for. The job of a “picker” in the used/vintage clothing industry is to dig through warehouses full of clothing in order to find desirable items for their client(s). I worked with two other girls for the same company (The Patch Clothing, based out of Victoria, BC), and we had a large binder full of styles and brand names which we were meant to look for in the warehouse.
Of course, for my present work of teaching students, gathering information/research is really important. When teaching students, it is always important to source and use new materials. When finding new materials, the teacher must know how to use them in the class. Different categories of students have different needs when learning ESL (or FSL, which I also teach). I often teach kids, but I have adult students as well. There are different types of textbooks for different age groups, and different level groups. I have to know about which textbooks to use depending on the student. For example, I have to consider what the student (or student’s parents) is demanding for their learning needs. Sometimes students simply want to talk with a native speaker as well, and this also requires another type of preparation, which can sometimes be even more difficult than working from a textbook. To do speaking clubs with kids, it’s definitely necessary to source some games, and organize a type of lesson plan for the kids, so that they don’t go off track and start causing chaos in the classroom. Different ages need a different type of lesson plan. For example, kids who are 6-12 years old will be bored if you give them a lesson plan more suitable for 3-5 year olds. They need something more challenging and less active. Kids 3-5 years old, or even younger, need a lesson plan which is very interactive and involves alot of active games, where they can touch different objects/toys, and move around to music or do actions to symbolize words or letters. For teens, they need a whole different type of lesson plan. It also varies between young teens and older teens. Of course, the overall level of the kids has to be considered as well, advanced and beginner can not be in the same class. When I was working in China in particular, we planned all our classes meticulously because we were working with young learners (and very demanding parents). All of our lessons had to be planned with a lesson plan table. I had 16 classes a week, therefore I had to meticulously plan 16 classes, and sometimes extra classes. This involved working together with my Chinese teacher, sourcing materials (such as physical materials for arts and crafts, ideas for games and also online materials such as songs). I had to write every lesson plan by hand. Each part of the lesson was planned out, with timing, and we presented our class like a show for the kids. I will include a picture of one of my lesson plans in the evidence section. Everything had to be entertaining for the kids. The work was very demanding.
Information gathering and organization is generally a very important skill when living and travelling abroad. I have traveled and lived in various different places and countries, and it’s always necessary to know what one is getting into when deciding to move to a new place. It’s important, first of all, to source information about flights, buses, trains, or other types of transport necessary to get around. It’s necessary to create and follow a travel itinerary, and know where you’re going to stay also. Wherever I have moved to, I have always been very resourceful when finding somewhere to live and to work as well, even if I don’t know anyone there and don’t speak the language as well. Also, arranging visas and legal information is an important part of travelling and living abroad. Especially for the few times I have had to make working visas for living in foreign countries, it has been a big task of gathering the proper legal information about myself and organizing all my documents in order to apply for such visas. When applying for working visas for China especially, it is very difficult, and requires jumping through many different hoops. Usually, Chinese agents are quite skilled in the business of cheating their clients as well… therefore it is really necessary for foreigners to have as much knowledge as they can when working in China. Being naïve will end up costing foreigners alot of money, usually. It was really important for me to communicate with other foreigners about visa and agent issues, and stay up-to-date with the constantly changing Chinese legal policies. There are various groups on the Chinese social media network, WeChat, which almost everyone in China uses. While living in China I also began working on my degree online. This was also a challenge, because I had to know how to access all the required information for my courses, and sometimes information is not completely accessible because of China’s “great firewall” (all websites owned by Facebook or Google are blocked, including Youtube). Therefore it was important for me to source the correct way of accessing the outside internet, a VPN. I am also someone who is very frugal, so knowing where to get the best free VPN was important for me.
In my evidence 3.1 I show the website I have been working on for some time. It is another wordpress website, similar to this one. I have been making websites since I was 12 years old. It’s not exactly in my adult life, but when I was a teenager I was very interested in HTML and CSS coding. This has carried on in to my adult life.
What I show in my evidence 3.1 is a website I made for discourses from my Spiritual Master, which I also share with other friends who are interested. I do transliteration texts, which mean that I take the words from his spoken, recorded lectures, and type them out. This is a long and sometimes painstaking process, because it can sometimes be hard to understand what he is saying in the lectures. What I have learned from doing these transliteration texts is that it is important to consult with others. Many times, when I wanted to copy out the Sanskrit or Bengali texts spoken in the lectures, I would need the help of some monks to find the proper verses. I would contact a few different people to help me find the correct verses to write them out properly. I’ve learned that teamwork is a good way to gather correct information. I try to carry out this humble attitude in my work at TRU also. I like that in many online courses at TRU, there is a discussion forum with other students where we can write and comment on other people’s posts. It helps me to get new ideas and also learn how to organize myself, and realise what I should be working on.
In my evidence 3.2, I show the lesson plan sheets from my work in China. In China I was really adamant about writing out all the plans for each of my lessons. I usually had 16 classes per week, so each week, on Saturday, I would hand-write out the plan for each of my lessons for the coming week. The school I worked for had a courseware system which we had to follow, so I had to first check what the lesson topic would be, and create my lessons around that. After that, I would consult with my Chinese co-teachers to source the correct materials for the upcoming classes. Sometimes we had to go to the market and create the materials for the lessons ourselves. Other times we had to do a lot of online searching. Sometimes we would even order new toys, costumes, and other materials online. By the end of my working term in China, I had two big binders full of lesson plan sheets, which my boss was then using as reference for new employees. I am proud that they can use my old work materials as a training manual for new teachers. It was a lot of hard work and organization. What I have learned from this experience is that it takes a lot of hard work and diligence to keep organized and create something spectacular. I think this experience with creating these in-depth lesson plans has also helped me with creating my PLAR portfolio, which has been another great task of information gathering and organization about my life experiences.
Evidence:
3.1Website Screen Captions
3.2 Lesson Plan sheet from China
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4. Problem Solving and Decision-Making
Problem solving and decision making is definitely an important skill to have when living on your own. I have been living on my own since the age of 17. At first, when I was newly alone, it was really difficult for me to make decisions and understand what I should be doing. I had somewhat of an internal crisis. I didn’t know which way was up or down. It took some time and gaining of experience and maturity to finally understand what kind of decisions I should make. When living with friends as roommates in Vancouver, there were often problems which I had to deal with. For one, I was living in an apartment where I was the primary tenant, and I had another friend who would rent a room “from me”. At the time I was 18. I felt I was pretty responsible, but often my friends were not so responsible. I had to sometimes hound my roommate for the rent or accept when they didn’t have the money on the correct day. It took alot of patience, and I was always trying to show my best face when I dealt with the landlord. Sometimes my roommates/friends would be messy or have their boyfriends over, which I didn’t really like. After living like this for around 6 months, I decided that I shouldn’t depend on anyone else for their share of the rent, because it’s unpredictable and potentially unreliable, so I decided to rent an apartment of my own. The next apartment was a problem also, because it was far far away from any type of grocery markets or laundromat. When living in a less central region of Vancouver, this can especially be a problem because there are hills everywhere, which make it especially difficult to walk around. At 18 I was budgeting my money and acting independently, basically trying to survive, and managing my own life without any parental support. At the same time, I was also trying to pay my student loan debt, which I was also working really hard towards. It was a time when I was living very meagerly, on very little money, and trying to maintain responsibility toward my debt. Eventually, trying so hard to pay this debt was one of the reasons I decided to leave Vancouver and move to Montreal, because Vancouver is very expensive and difficult to live in for a young single person. Living in Montreal, I was able to pay more of my debt, but the repayment still wasn’t moving fast enough for me, therefore I decided to try my luck in the UK, working for Great Britain Pounds, and sending the money back to Canada to again try to pay my debt. After working myself very hard, and getting very very sick in London, I decided that the quest to pay my never-ending debt was doing me more harm than good. Upon visiting Ukraine for a week, I met the man who would be my future husband. We decided to get married, and I moved to Ukraine a few months later. In Ukraine, my parents agreed to take care of my debt situation, as they saw that the fight was taking a big toll on my health. I did all I could have done at the point.
Proper problem-solving abilities are really important to have when living and travelling in a foreign environment, which I have been doing for the past 4 years or so. When I went to London, I discovered that the culture is actually quite different from Canadian culture. People have a different mindset and employer-employee relationships are different than in Canada. In Ukraine and China, the dynamics between people are even more foreign and different. I have had to navigate the waters of foreign lands for some time now. For one, I have seen that in Europe and Asia, cheating in business is quite common. So sometimes is takes tricks, or proving one’s self to make sure that the correct pay arrives in hand. I think that having a spiritual understanding of things has really helped me make better decisions in my life, make better relationships, and read people better. To add to that; I can see that my ashram training and having important mentors for that time of my life has given me alot of wisdom about problem-solving and decision making, which I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Another thing is that for much of my time living in Canada, I was around people of all types of races and backgrounds. Simply acting as an observer first and as a participant second has helped, and continues to help me, when dealing with people and situations. I would say that my system has been culture-shocked quite a few times, and all this experience from living in different environments helps me to know how I should deal with situations in my everyday life.
In my evidence 4.1 I show another very difficult situation which happened in my life around 4 years ago, which was giving birth to my little daughter Julia. I am her biological mother, but she was adopted by some very good people. It was a big decision deciding to give her up for adoption. During the pregnancy there were many difficult times when I was unsure about what I should do. Also, I was borderline homeless at some points. It was very hard to know which steps I should take, but through prayer I believe (and many people tell me…) I made the right decision for her and myself. I found her adoptive parents through my social network. The grandmother of the adoptive mother e-mailed me and it took me some time to reply. At that point I wasn’t sure what course of action I was going to take. After meeting the adoptive family the decision to let them adopt her wasn’t so hard. They were very kind. My mind was made up, and the overall process of signing paperwork and legalities were not so difficult seeing as I already knew I wanted the adoption to happen. It was a happy moment when she was born, with everyone crying. What I have learned from this experience is hard to put in to words, seeing as there is so much I have learned. I think the main thing I learned is that it is important to plan and make decisions very carefully, and to consider all parties involved. Without going too much into detail, this experience made me very careful when dealing with relationships such as dating, from that time on. It made me very cautious and particular when choosing a life partner. I’m somewhat happy it happened, because it made me think more about what I should be looking for in a partner. I am happy that I have my husband, as seen in 4.2. My husband and I didn’t get to know each other much before marriage, we met one day through mutual friends, I assessed his character and thought he was a good person. After meeting in person we talked online for 4 months and got engaged. I think especially after my experience as mentioned in my evidence 4.1, I became more practical minded than romantic minded when is comes to relationships. Actually I was the one who proposed to my husband, after seeing that he had a good character and qualities I was looking for in a life partner. I met him in person, we talked online for 4 months, got engaged, I moved to Ukraine 4 months later, and one month after my arrival we were married. It was very quick, and initially, it was not easy to be married in a foreign land with customs I didn’t understand. What I have learned from this is generally- don’t rush in to decisions, even if the seeming decision seems like the right one in all aspects. Our decision to get married wasn’t the wrong one- it was the right one, but it has taken me some time to adjust and cope with this decision. We are still married of course, and I am happy we are. We are growing together every day, and making a little family now with the birth of our new baby coming soon. Overall, I think that what I have also learned is that decisions should not be made only from the practical side of things, it is also necessary to listen to one’s heart. When I got married I was not trying to assess the heart matters, I was thinking more practically and didn’t want to listen to my heart due to past scars. However, the relationship with my husband has healed my heart in many ways, and the desire for practical security has made me be able to show a little more softness. I am grateful for him in my life and we solve problems and make important decisions together all the time. What I’ve also learned from my relationship is that in a family, we should make important decisions together to benefit everyone. As well, it helps to have a second or third opinion when facing difficult decisions in life.
Evidence:
4.1 Pictures of me with new baby Julia
4.2 Wedding/Married Life Photos
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5. Numeracy
I want to be honest about my experience with this section. I don’t have any experience with anything to do with numeracy. I don’t have any experience with balancing a budget, accounting, or even doing my own taxes. I suppose that my closest experience with balancing a budget would be balancing my own monthly expenses from when I was living on my own. When I lived on my own, I mainly had to calculate my monthly expenses, but this was never done with any type of spreadsheet or anything similar. I would think in my mind- how much is my rent? How much is my transit pass? How much do I have left for food? When was first trying to save my money to take a trip to India, I was around 18 and my method of saving money was taking my money out of the bank and putting it in a jar. Seeing as the life in Vancouver is greatly unaffordable for young people living on minimum wage, it was a very slow process. One of the main reasons I decided not to live in Vancouver any longer was because of the high prices on pretty much everything. Over the years I have invested in cryptocurrencies and silver as well. So these are things I have in my pocket. Living in Ukraine, not many people have the mentality about calculating costs of life, because the situation is greatly unpredictable. People somehow get money when they need it, by hook or by crook. As far as I can understand as well, many Ukrainians try to work abroad and send money home because the wages here are very low (that is, if one can even find a way to make money). Many people have their own property, like an apartment, house, or land, which was inherited after the Soviet Government collapsed. For many people, especially old pensioners, renting a second apartment this is their way of surviving, seeing as the pension here is usually less than 200$ US/month. Many people in Ukraine live on 300-400$ a month. This is normally the wage for doctors or nurses working in the public health system. In the case of our family, we also rent out our second apartment, but all this money goes in the hand of my mother-in-law, who is a pensioner, and manages this apartment. As for my economic situation, I make more money because I am a foreigner. It can be hard to budget or predict anything when it is impossible to know if my husband will have a job tomorrow, or if someone will somehow cheat on the paperwork of our family property and steal it. Before I was married I tried very hard to pay my initial student debt, from my first college experience. Unfortunately, even though paying hundreds of dollars every month, I was not able to pay it, but I did put a dent in it. I managed to make the payments every month by essentially trying to spend the least amount of money possible. I also tried to pay it by going to London and trying to work for GBP. It didn’t make much of a difference.
Our family method of dealing with expenses at the present moment is to all work together. We have income from various different sources and try to budget and plan things all together. Our main expense is electricity, and at this point we are doing household repairs because our house is old and needs a few updates. Some of these repairs are costly so our family works together to split the price.
I have made a budget/checklist for our new baby we are expecting. She should be arriving around the beginning of November 2020. We are really excited and trying to get all the items we need to take care of our little angel. We always calculate the price of things in both Ukrainian Grivnyas and US dollars as well. My favourite site for shopping on a budget is AliExpress, which is cheap, with fast chipping, and usually good quality items. We also order things from the local Ukrainian online shopping app, Rozetka. Since we currently live in the countryside, this method of shopping is really convenient, seeing as we don’t need or want to spend alot of time browsing the nearby marketplace. I find it more convenient just to shop online and have everything we need shipped to the local post office. It’s also more cost efficient, seeing as I can search for the best price online. This spreadsheet is in Evidence 5.1.
I have been living abroad since the end of 2016, first in London then in Ukraine… then in China, then in Ukraine again. There are many tricks for dealing with money which foreigners must learn when living abroad. It can be especially difficult when living as a “western” person in “eastern” territory. In Canada, people are more straightforward when dealing with payments and money. They probably won’t try to cheat you. Once you go east of Germany, however, things become more corrupt. That’s part of the reason why I prefer not to work for companies in Ukraine at the moment; I instead prefer to work for myself as a freelancer online for American dollars. As I show in my evidence 5.2 (managing money online), I have had to learn how to manage my money well while living abroad. I am someone who always looks for the best deal on everything (I really do my research), therefore I have found the best ways to do money transfers and keep track of my earnings online. Firstly, when we were in China, sending money to my non-Chinese bank account was next to impossible- until I found a great service called “The Swapsy (.com)”. To give a background about the situation we were in: In China, foreigners can not send money abroad unless they have proper documentation about where they have gotten their money from. In that case, they will only be able to send a very small, unreasonable amount to a foreign bank account; and only a few times a year. Therefore most foreigners must ask a Chinese citizen to send their money for them, so it is a hassle to bother one’s friends or colleagues all the time. As I have explained in my evidence: what “the Swapsy” does is simply match up partners to “swap” money. The site doesn’t hold any money, they simply match partners, so people can exchange money with each other. So, for example, I would put out my request to “swap” 4,000RMB on the site, and some other person would click on my request so they could “swap” me the equivalent in USD. When the swap then became approved, I would receive the money sharing code (usually a QR code) for that user, and I would send them 4,000RMB. Then, on the site, they would confirm that I sent them the RMB, and the next step would be for them to transfer the equivalent to my Paypal in USD. Then, I would go on the site and confirm that the other user has sent me my side of the money. This service was a huge lifesaver for me when I was in China, because I had to often send my money to my foreign account- mainly to pay for my education. When I was in China I also became well adapted to their system over there; which is nearly cashless! China is moving toward everyone paying through their phones with apps such as Alipay or WeChat. Many vendors in China even don’t accept debit card payments these days; instead they have their own personal QR payment code displayed for Alipay and WeChat. This is even the case for taxi drivers!
Since returning to Ukraine, I have mainly been working online. Since I get paid through Paypal, and my Canadian bank account is attached to my Paypal, I have had to find a way to transfer this money so we can use it over here in Ukraine. Since I don’t currently have a bank account over here, this means I should transfer my money to someone who does (that person being my husband). After much research, I have found the service Transferwise, which I am extremely grateful for, as it is also a very clever system like The Swapsy. Transferwise takes my Canadian dollars right from my bank account, holds the money, and then sends it out in the currency of the recipient, directly to their bank account. It is such a cheap and easy to use service, much unlike using international bank-to-bank transfer services. I can do everything from an app on my phone, and all I need is the debit card number and name of the recipient. The service only changes a few dollars per transfer (which is always different depending on the amount being sent), whereas when I contacted my bank about making an international transfer, they told me it would be at least $40USD to make a transfer of a few hundred dollars. At this point I am highly impressed with Transferwise and I recommend this service to all expats I meet.
In the past, I have always budgeted for travelling. So I would try to save some of my money to be able to take a flight somewhere, to a new place. At this point I am also not sure if I will remain in Ukraine for a long time, seeing as it can be hard for me to stay in one place. That might change though, because we are expecting a new baby soon, my mother-in-law is getting older, and other reasons. We are currently trying to open an English training center here also, little by little. We already have a free space where we work, which is like a co-operative artists center, run by our friends and us. This would be a collective effort, and the expenses would be shared between everyone.
Evidence:
5.1 New Baby Excel Spreadsheet
5.2 Managing money online
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6. Critical and Creative Thinking
Critical and creative thinking is something which I think I have always had, but in my adult life I have had to apply these skills in various circumstances. I can give a few examples. When I left home at 17 to start University, I was completely on my own and had a big internal crisis from being in such a different situation all of a sudden. Since I was a young person almost completely alone (or at least without any parental guidance), I had to figure out how to live on my own. It was really not easy at first. The amount of stress in my life was unbearable at the time. Suddenly, I had to work a job to pay my rent, while attending intensive school courses at the same time. I was also coming from an environment which was more or less sheltered, and very different from living in a big city. In my childhood and teenage years, my family attended a large Evangelical church in St. Catharines, Ontario (where I grew up). Like most families who attended this church, we went every Sunday and on holidays. There were also youth groups and other activities during the week which my sister and I attended. While I did attend this as a family activity, I felt that I had more unanswered questions than answered questions. In the youth groups I would often ask questions about things which I think the youth leaders felt uncomfortable answering. I was not trying to be antagonistic, actually, I simple had alot of creative ideas and wanted answers about things. In my home town with my family I never had a chance to explore any other kind of spirituality or philosophy, in fact this was really discouraged and felt really stagnant for me. During my teenage years I was often involved with the local artists center in downtown St. Catharines. I met many different kinds of people there. I think my general feeling of not being able to explore the world much when I was young has lead me to the place where I am today, of being a world traveler who is very much involved with various creative and philosophical communities wherever I seem to go. When I was in the temple, we were always analyzing philosophy and trying to go deep and find explanations for everything, and at the same time working on more artistic services. We had to use our creative thinking to create new outfits for the deities, when cooking delicious food a few times a day, and also with managing our time. As I have shown in my evidence 6.1, I have done a lot of cooking over the years and presently I also enjoy making new food creations and serving them to friends and family. Many friends and family members tell me I should open a restaurant when they try my cooking. It was my good friend and “Reverend Mother”, Madame Akuti/Josee, who really taught me the art of cooking. When we were together, she taught me how to properly prepare a feast for guests as we often held devotional programs together. We would not only cook, but bake, create cold creations such as smoothies, lassies, sweets, and various other things. It is to my amazement that I have become such a good cook, because before the training Akuti gave me, my cooking was terrible and inedible. What I have learned from being in the kitchen is a lot of patience and how to read recipes carefully. Cooking is as much of an art as painting or graphic design. There are various elements which must come together and it is important to know how to use flavours appropriately. Another thing is that in our religion, we do not taste the cooking before it is offered on the altar- therefore, cooking in this way requires the skill of knowing the correct amounts of spice, seasoning, salt, etc. Many chefs taste their food while it is on the stove. For us, this is unthinkable, so we must learn how to cook well without sampling. This is the art of cooking intuition.
In my life currently, I am not so involved with any temple services, but I am living in a Ukrainian village presently where my husband and I are involved with an artists collective project. Being around artists really inspires me more in my creativity, and I have been making small clay pendants recently, which I have shown in my evidence 6.2. I also like to create home decorations and other items from recycled materials. For example, in our house we drink a lot of bottled mineral water; therefore we have a lot of old water bottles. I have recently found a passion with recycling these bottles by cutting them up into different shapes such as hearts and stars, and using old jute thread to create wind chimes, mobiles, and other hanging home decorations with seashells and red peach pits used as hanging weights. It is a fun and tedious process which I really enjoy. I have always done crafty things my whole life, and in my adult life I have learned how to refine this talent, so much so that I have sold a few of my creations, such as articles of “upcycled” clothing which I used to make when I was just coming out of college. Seeing a water bottle or old bedsheet and re-imagining it as a new, interesting, useful object is something I like to do, and it’s something I’ve learned how to do as well.
As another note about this subject, like most of my learning, travelling has helped me to develop myself alot, whether in my lone travelling or in my married life. Travelling and living abroad in my married life has been different than travelling in my unmarried life. When I was unmarried and travelling the world/relocating often by my own, it was necessary for me to make decisions on my own about essentially how to survive and adapt to new environments. The aspect of critical thinking was very important, because I had to be aware of myself and learn new customs when living in a new city, even within Canada, because living in Vancouver is very different than living in Montreal. When I was living alone I always had the feeling that I had to protect myself, therefore I would say I was often on high alert, but in a relaxed sense. Creativity was always necessary, because to live on my own I had to be creative in how I would make money and manage my time and myself. When I moved to London, I was also on my own and had to be really creative, because this time I was in a totally new environment. I worked as a kind of freelance care worker in London. This meant I had to find jobs for myself. I also had to be creative and find proper accommodation at a good price, which is really difficult to find in London. After marriage, I would say my creativity and critical thinking is actually enhanced, because my husband and family give me good security, so there’s not much I have to worry about. In our house, as is common in Ukraine, we make decisions all together: myself, my husband, and my mother in law! In Ukraine people function more with a family clan mentality, and there is alot of cheating going on from many different angles. The laws are not so secure as in North America or Western Europe, so people have to be smart and play their cards right in order to keep their family property and money. Often in our family, we are discussing how to make the right decisions when dealing with family affairs. I can see that this style of life is common in most Eastern countries. In Ukraine it can often be hard for people to get their salary from employers. A higher level of creative and critical thinking was also important when my husband and I went to work in China, because employers and people in general often try to cheat you there, with money especially.
For me, being a foreigner living abroad often means you must be resourceful in order to make money where you don’t speak the language, and also make good thought out plans about how to conduct your business, even if your business is simply English teaching.
Evidence:
6.1 Love of Cooking
6.2 Artwork/Handicrafts
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7. Independent Learning and Intellectual Maturity
I think it is safe to say that I have a good discipline for learning independently. When I first left my college when I was younger, I had the idea that I would teach myself all the things I wanted to know. I will be honest and say that at the time I didn’t see the value of having a formal education like a bachelor’s degree, which I am now trying to obtain. I think this realization that I need formal education to better my life is a part of intellectual maturity. I think it is really hard to properly define what intellectual maturity is. Now I am 25 years old and I definitely feel I have ‘lived’ quite alot in the years since graduating highschool. I have had alot of hard experiences that I’ve dealt with. One experience which greatly impacted my life was the passing of one of my best friends, who was like a mother to me, Madame Josee Cardinal (whom I called Mother Akuti). I lived with her in an ashram environment for around 3 years in Montreal, we ran alot of devotional programs together and also hosted travelling monks, etc. She taught me many things. I show the pictures of this center in evidence 7.1. We ran the Premaloka center with other friends. It was a learning process, of how to manage the money and get the proper legal paperwork done for the place. We registered the place as a charity organization and also got insurance, in case anybody were to get hurt or any problems were to occur there. This was our public center where we would invite new people to come for programs, but our ashram environment was separate from this place. What I can say I ultimately learned from my experience of living in the ashram was really the four principles which we lived by, namely: cleanliness, austerity, honesty, and compassion. Especially the aspect of austerity, I can say I have become addicted to a life of austerity, which is maybe also why I have chosen to live in a country such as Ukraine, where I feel the local people understand the concept of living austerely. As for mother Akuti, I was her main caregiver in Canada for her when she had cancer. Unfortunately, it was stage 4 when it was found, and the doctors gave her maximum one year to live if she did all the treatment they were suggesting. She opted for alternative treatment because the allopathic method didn’t sound very promising (even the doctors told her that they wouldn’t be able to save her). It took alot of tough patience and discipline for me to do this service for her. I wasn’t paid, but that wasn’t such a big problem for me. It was really difficult seeing someone who you always knew to be so strong suddenly with tears in their eyes, feeling that they would die. I think one of the greatest lessons I have learned from my spiritual practice and once hard-pressed ashram life is the art of detachment and prayer. I have been through many seemingly hard times in my adult years, I think these experiences have all helped me grow and mature. Another difficult experience I had, before the passing of my good friend, was when I had an unexpected pregnancy. I ultimately gave my daughter in adoption to a very nice family who I met through my network of friends. It took alot of maturity, I would say, to make the best decision I could. I knew I wasn’t ready to raise a child on my own, and I also wasn’t ready to “abort” a baby. In the end I feel it was truly meant to be that my daughter ended up with such a good family who are very kind and constantly keep in contact with me. My decision was especially meaningful to them, seeing as they were not able to have children of their own. It took alot of strength and maturity to carry the baby without any help from my family. I was essentially living on charity for this period, seeing as I couldn’t work (and also getting social assistance). I was constantly being visited by social workers from the adoption agency to talk to me about any issues I may have had. In the end I ended up having to sign alot of legal documents verifying my decision to give my daughter in adoption.
As for independent learning, I am learning independently right now, by attending online self-paced courses at TRU. I believe that my grades and pacing of course completion should show how driven I truly am to get my Bachelor’s Degree. I feel that these online self-paced programs are truly meant for people just like me, who otherwise would have a very difficult time getting a university degree in their adult life. On top of this aspect of my present independent formal learning, there is also the point that I am constantly teaching myself through my job, which at the moment is freelance ESL teaching. I have found various platforms for freelance ESL teaching, and I mainly work with Preply.com, a website which I am highly grateful for, seeing as it gets me many students. My students are of all different categories, therefore I constantly need to source the proper material for each person. I use materials for children such as courseware, songs, and storybooks. I have taught myself the proper computer skills to create the best classes possible, using visual aids to greater enhance the classroom experience. On top of this, I am currently also studying one of my favourite languages, Bengali, from another Preply tutor, who has turned in to my very good friend. Every week I have around five classes a week with her, and also study in my free time. Studying languages is something I’m really passionate about, and I’m constantly trying to teach myself new things about different languages. My passion of learning new foreign languages was also a big attraction for me when I was first becoming interested in my religious path. The Bengali songs written on a big board in the Vancouver ISKCON temple seemed like an interesting challenge I was ready and excited to tackle. I then became somewhat of a known person in the temple community, for my great enthusiasm for singing. I took a great interest in learning to sing and recite mantras, and also understand their meanings. I have shown just a little snippet of what I can sing and recite in my evidence 7.2. Every day I recite mantras for 15 minutes or so in the morning and evening. I have demonstrated only part of this in my evidence for the sake of time. Songs are a very important part of our religious tradition as they are also like a form of scripture; they are written by saints and have very deep meanings. Even if a person cannot read or write, they can hear these songs and remember the messages communicated through them.
As for French, I can’t say that I am 100% self-taught in this language, because of course this is part of the school curriculum in English Canada. I have also studied Hindi and Sanskrit, and I can read the script of these languages very easily, though my vocabulary and grammar in these languages is not very good. I can also read the Russian/Cyrillic script, a product of study and also living in Ukraine. I like living abroad in Ukraine and being married to a Ukrainian because I feel like I always learn new things, especially about language and culture. My husband is also a linguist and he likes to explain the world of languages to me, which I find really interesting. I think I can safely say that I am a fan of lifetime learning and even after finishing my degree at TRU, I hope I can continue to study various topics of interest for my whole life.
Evidence:
7.1 Photos from Premaloka Center in Montreal
7.2 Singing of religious songs
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8. Applied Knowledge and Skills
With all my evidence and topics covered in my portfolio, I aim to show the knowledge I have learned and the skills I have learned as well. I have learned many things, and my learning process is not yet over, seeing as I still have many more years of my life to further study and develop myself. Right now I am pregnant and I am sure that this new baby will change my life and teach me many things. I hope, that I can apply all the knowledge I have now to my future life, and use the skills I have to further my self-development and career development. Right now my husband and I am working on a project together to try to start an English tutoring center in the small town we live in near Kiev, Ukraine. Our friends initially have this space rented as a center for their artists collective, but they rent only one room out of an otherwise abandoned building. All together, with teamwork, we all hope to develop this big, four-story abandoned building bit by bit. Our next goal is to one day develop the main floor of this building in to a big art gallery space, with an enclosed side room where my husband and I can offer our English tutoring services. All of the lessons I have learned in my adult life about friendship, comradery, teamwork, general budgeting and about making wise decisions will really come in handy when working together with the group to try to develop our dream space together.
I have had my own self-study of language learning and other talents throughout my adult life. Since I have only started attending university (online) in the last 2 years, I have had much time to study things outside a formal academic environment. One of these things which I am happy to have learned is the French language. Ever since I first started French class when I was young, I had a great desire to learn the French language properly (and other languages as well). Over time I did come to study it in an immersive environment, by living in Montreal and in France as well. It’s a great honour for me to apply this knowledge wherever I can, even when helping a tourist or teaching a new Francophone student English. A great time of my life was when I was translating the book “Skinhead Devenu Swami” (“Skinhead Who Became a Swami”), for Yati Maharaja of France. I had good memories of France and I am really happy I was able to spend time there in the temple, bettering my French. I have shown my French language skill and part of the translation text in my evidence 8.1.
As for my present work as a freelance English (and French) teacher, there is a long list of applied knowledge and skills which I can think of. First of all, teaching ESL as a freelance individual is a business. It’s not only that you must be a good teacher, you must also have a good way of marketing yourself. There are alot of business tricks that must be used to catch and keep students when working as a freelancer. I try to find the best materials for each student, and follow up with new potential students to catch them. To keep my students I always try to engage them with different materials, so that the class is interesting. It’s also necessary to be very personable and friendly with students, which I think is a trait not always embodied by teachers who are employed by the state, for example. Since I am self-employed, my business is selling my services and skills to my clients. The knowledge I have to teach may seem overly-simple to other native English speakers who don’t actually know what goes on in ESL teaching. I speak English, and I have since birth, so general knowledge of English was something I already had before even considering to step in the the sphere of teaching. Before becoming a teacher, I had no idea how much skill and talent it takes to be a good ESL teacher. When I first started, I didn’t have many students and felt lost sometimes when trying to plan lessons for students. I started working as a “native speaker”, which in Ukraine means: someone who you simply sit with and talk to. I didn’t have to use textbooks, and I didn’t advance too quickly in my skills. It was actually China which gave me a big push in my ESL teaching career. The Chinese are very hard working and push their foreign workers to develop their skills as well. After a few months of teaching kids in China, I felt much more qualified to create and plan lessons for all age levels. I will include videos of my present ESL freelance teaching in the evidence section of this portfolio. My students on Preply are really happy with me. I have a few reviews on the site to affirm this also. Recently one student’s parent wrote that she is so happy that her son is learning English so quickly, and she appreciates how I plan every lesson for each student individually. I try to design every lesson so that it tailors to each student’s individual needs, and helps them learn the best they can. This in itself is a skill. In the beginning, it would take me quite a long time to make good English lessons for students. Now, it takes me a few minutes. Since I have such an in-depth store of books and materials, mainly digitally, it is easy now for me to pull from my store and my own memory of what methods worked for previous similar students. I have a few interactive online teaching websites, and online storybooks, which I use for kids as well. I often use my computer skills, such as working with simple programs such as MS Word, MS Paint, etc.. to create materials as well. These may include matching or word activities for my students, and I also have learned how to save storybooks by copying the images from Youtube story readings, seeing as PDF files of kids picture books are very hard to find. Applying my general computer knowledge to my ESL teaching helps me create the best classes possible for my students, and they like the interactive aspect. The result of my hard work and learned skills can be seen where I was selected to compete in a China-wide ESL teaching competition. I have shown this in my evidence 8.2. I was from a very small district center and didn’t know what to expect from this competition, and also wasn’t prepped well by my boss or manager as to what to expect when competing in this competition. I went there to compete alongside my colleague and we definitely didn’t win the competition, but we competed, which was already a big achievement, seeing as we were from such a small unheard of center.
Evidence:
8.1 Translation Texts
8.2 ESL Certificates/Awards/Competitions