Chased by dogs or my first international conference experience abroad

In this blog I want to share with you my first experience in taking part in the international conference abroad. During this journey we were chased by dogs, get lost, exposed to rain in night Istanbul and spent approximately 14 hours in Istanbul airport. Also we met interesting people, saw night Antalya and of course presented our works during the conference.

It is actually the second international conference in my life, but the first I attended while studying for my Bachelor in my home town - Aktobe. It was organized by my university, lasted two days and hosted a lot of participants from neighbour countries, mostly Russia. After opening ceremony we were divided by our themes to several sections and mine was history and economy. The topic of my presentation was History of American dollar. I was telling about masonic theory of its origins, how dollar was designed, what inscriptions mean and why they were chosen. It was interesting for me to investigate this subject and listeners also liked my presentation. That event was a combination of conference and competition, that is why there were judges and at the end of the conference I got the second place.

And my recent conference experience was in Turkey a week ago. I went to that country for the first time and was nervous about it as well as about presenting my work in front of all these strangers from different countries. When we arrived to Goynuk (tourist village near Antalya) to our hotel, we were so excited even though it was cold (in sunny Turkey!!!) outside. 

We had two days to prepare to the presentations and on the first day we decided to go to the nearest shopping center and get lost (again). The second day we attended some sessions to see its overall organization and style.Seven sessions by five or six individual presentations in each both on Turkish and English languages. Sessions were organized based on topics: ICT in education, medicine, biology, pedagogy, higher education and secondary education. Our expectations from this conference were high; however they were not quite met. The atmosphere was relaxed, nobody was nervous and we decided not to worry about our performance and just enjoy the company of interesting people. After comparing our presentations with others’ we concluded that our training is much better. And now I am thinking, what is more important to possess good presentation skills or to have an interesting topic, especially if you cannot combine them.

Do You want to study abroad?

Globalization opens doors for different parts of the world. Interesting food, new meetings, unforgettable time and amazing sightseeing on the pho

tos of your friends encourage you to shift the boards and sick something new for You. 

Studying abroad is the best chance to see the world, interact with peoples, get new impressions from the firsthand, break stereotypes and create your own perception of life. It pushes people to go out of their comfort zone and appreciate different cultures and differences of the other people. Studying abroad gives a great opportunity to “personal growth” ( Berdan, 2015). Berdan states students who studies abroad demonstrates a creative way of solving problems, fast adoption toward different cultural area, perfect communicative abilities and knowledge of culture and language in practice.

Besides, new emotions it also gives us an important experience for our future career.  This type of traveling and studying are widely spread all over the world. Today students collaborate travelling and studying but young people from the U.S.A, the United Kingdom and Australia, 570, 300 and 150 thousands respectively take the leading position. In comparison with “Abroad studying giants” Kazakhstan demonstrates dynamic interest toward international education. According to the report of the Ministry of the education the number of Kazakhstani students abroad achieved 45 thousand students among them only 2000 people study by the program “Bolashak”. 1700 study by different international programs and 19100 students study full time and others applied independently (Usupova, 2014). According to numbers it means that studying is an important, a trendy and fashionable thing also. But how to catch this chance and make the right choice?

For students interested in reaping the rewards described above by employers, they'll need to choose a program that combines rigor academic and cross-cultural accent in the curriculum. In order to achieve the best results and increase immersion process students should pay attention on the courses as:

Local language coursework. Content classes (history, literature, business) taken I other language besides English which will increase your linguistic repertoire.

Diverse student bodies. Programs which cover students form different countries and cultural backgrounds. It will facilitate cross- cultural team work and enhance the number of friends all over the world.

Regionally relevant content. The main goal of going abroad is to know more about culture, geography and history of the host country. Studying abroad is a great opportunity to enjoy and explore something new for you.
Curricula-driven study abroad. Some program focused on working on global problems as team: water shortage, cultural preservation and others. It will be great chance to share your experience with others and listen others examples and experiences.  

Locations matters. Prospective employers are increasingly interested in where applicants studied abroad. Branching out beyond the traditional European destinations and into countries such as China, Brazil, India, Mexico or Turkey, for example, signals an enhanced awareness of growing global economies -- and a direct link to the places many organizations are expanding and growing.

In my talks on campuses, many students express an interest in "just having fun" while studying abroad, so they're planning on taking a few classes pass/fail and traveling around. They want to know, is that so wrong? It all depends on what the objective is. College is a time for fun and travel, yes, but it's primarily for becoming career-ready and developing skills that will lead to employment upon graduation. Study abroad offers students an opportunity to do both.

References:

Berdan S., 2013.Why study abroad. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacie-nevadomski-berdan/why-study-abroad_b_4067124.html

Usupova A., 2014, Bolye 45 tysyach kazakstanskix studentov obuchayutsya zarubezhom. “Более 45 тысяч казахстанских студентов обучаются за рубежом”. Retrieved from: http://tengrinews.kz/kazakhstan_news/45-tyisyach-kazahstanskih-studentov-obuchayutsya-rubejom-259529/

How it happened so that I speak several language

When it comes to sharing personal experience, it is really important to structure the story in order to not confuse the reader. Therefore, I will follow the chronological order when explaining how it has happened to me to learn and speak several languages. Mentioning main linguistic domains of my formative years and delineating later languages learning, I will describe my feelings about being plurilingual.

In my childhood, I was surrounded by Russian speaking parents, relatives, neighbors, and mass media as a result of common Russification of the USSR territory. Nonetheless, I remember three Kazakh speakers - my two grandmothers and grandfather. In addition, I was taught English alphabet by my elder brother, and I was reasonably good at telling the letters in alphabetic order. So, at the age of six I operated active Russian and passive Kazakh vocabulary and was able to tell English ABC.

My school was a Russian medium Gymnasium announced "experimental" due to some innovations in curriculum like introducing English in the second grade against the fifth grade in other schools. As a result of educational experiment, I got really interested in English and after the ninth grade entered college to learn more about it. Compulsory study of German as the second foreign language didn't excite me at first, but the attitude of my teacher to our lessons and her teaching style made me learn basic grammar and vocabulary and even attend optional courses. Later, I wanted to inspire other people to learn languages as a teacher. Therefore, I did Bachelor and started master’s study in Education.

Having worked as a teacher, I forgot some German vocabulary because of the lack of practice, but I practiced English a lot by communicating with native speakers and colleagues, explained rules to my students, and tried to be creative while developing their language skills. As for Kazakh, in summer I visit my aunt who lives in a village in order to get involved into the environment of native Kazakh speakers. So that by this time I am still fluent in Russian, I have improved my English and Kazakh noticeably, whereas the practice in German is still needed.

All in all, emotionally I feel closely connected with every language I know, but in different ways. I think this happens, because of different purposes of languages use: I usually speak Russian with my family and friends, English at university, and Kazakh in the street, shops, and public transport (especially, in Astana). Therefore, I think my language and knowledge would be much poorer, if I stopped using any of the languages. That is why being able to speak three languages makes me feel socially and intellectually comfortable and affects my personal and professional achievements. 

What about you? What languages to you speak? How did you learn all these languages? How do you use them? How do you benefit and/or disadvantage from being plurilingual?

Defining Gender

         Once together with my groupmates we were discussing the issue of gender defining. This topic brought a great discussion then, later I saw the post of Ainur J on sex education at school. As a Primary School English teacher, I  find this topic really interesting because our childhood beliefs reflect in our adulthood decisions. Apart from Ainur J, I would like to share my thought about the definition of gender, its importance and impact on life, and the influence of social context on it. 

           I see the meaning of the term ‘gender’ as something which was given to us in birth and was educated by people we were surrounded by (their beliefs and attitudes). While people feel fine with what was given to them, they achieve and keep soul balance which allows and sometimes even inspires them to live, study, work, create, develop themselves, bring up children, etc. Imbalance takes place when people deny their nature, they feel that their sexual characteristics hinder and/or limit their opportunities. However, what people tend to aim at during their life is gaining harmony and agreement with themselves. This means that if a person was biologically born as a girl and she accepts that - she feels balanced; but if this girl refuses and claims herself as a male or the third gender, she is bound to have personal conflicts which bother her all the time and, consequently, she will probably spend a lot of her precious time and force to disagree with society. The same thing is likely to happen to a boy.

           I believe that sometimes the society makes up criteria for determining gender like toys for boys and girls. This helps keep the balance in the world: historically, a man is a person responsible for material things and a woman is for abstract ones (atmosphere at home, care after family, etc.). However, some people take radical sides and start creating and/or following stereotypes according to which a woman can’t work or a man can’t stay with children. In fact, both of them can do everything they want to, but they shouldn't forget that naturally they are a woman and a man.

         Personally, I am really thankful to my parents for accepting my gender and bringing up me as a girl. To do so, they bought me girlish toys such as a Barbie, iron, and cooker, told me beautiful stories about princesses, and showed a lot of Disney cartoons about them. Also, I remember a book called “Everything a girl needs to know” given for my birthday. Now it seems to me a little bit foolish, but it included a lot of useful information on etiquette, clothes design, cooking, and so on. So, my parents did their best to equip me with all those things which could be useful to me as to a person who was born female. At the same time, I remember my LEGO, bycicle, mini-copies of cars which didn’t make me feel I am a boy even if I liked them.

           I think our discussion was really interesting to me because I wouldn't have thought about the mechanisms of defining gender. It made me think of such people who find themselves as LGTB. Gender education is really important; however, it shouldn't be involved as a separate subject but some elements of it could be implemented in education process. For example, separation of girls for PT lessons and Craft, grouping students so that each of them can take their gender roles (games like “Desert Island”). 

           I am sure it will be reasonable to share our experiences before we start the discussion on the necessity of sex education at schools. So, what do you think about the issue of defining the gender? How important is it to define oneself as male or female? What has influenced you in this process?

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