Hello from Denver!

Hello from Denver, Colorado!

Actually, it is my last night in Denver and tomorrow in the early morning I am going back to Colchester. I feel emotionally and physically exhausted, but inspired, happy and full of fresh ideas about and for teaching! Oh, sorry! I forgot to tell the reason of my being in Denver! Here was the TESOL Convention 2010. It is a wonderful event!

At some moments I am thinking, “Why am I going back to Colchester, student’s life and 2 exams on Thursday???!!! I want to go back to Russia!!! To tell my colleagues about the Convention and the ideas that were pronounced and discussed! And to employ them in practice, and to see how my students could do them. I am sure, they would like them. But it is Life, and I am going back to college life.

It was such a pleasure to meet my group-mates from St Michael’s here, Fulbrighters whom I met in the Ohio University (at the pre-academic training program) and, what I am proud of, to attend my professors’ presentations which were a complete success.

Unfortunately, I did not have time to see the city and the Rocky Mountains (seeing them somewhere far meeting the sky does not count). Probably, I will have to come here again as a tourist. However, I am more than happy, to carry home (hm, unconsciously, for the first time during my 8 months of say in the USA, I called a place in this country “home”) a big luggage of knowledge, fresh ideas, inspirations, books for my friend and myself, and dictionaries.

I hope my overexcited speech is comprehensible, but now I should pack my luggage and file the ideas in the brain which does not accept doing any proofreading now.

Warmest regards,

Natasha

About Me

Hello everyone! :-)
I am Natalia Kozyakova, but prefer to be called Natasha. It is less formal, and simply friendly.

I am a Fulbright scholar from Russia at Saint Michael’s College. I taught English for a year at a secondary school and then for 8 years at teachers training college in the small town of Slavgorod in Siberia. And here I am, in the United Sates, at the Applied Linguistics Department of St Michael’s, working hard on my Masters Degree in TESOL. Hopefully, not hardly working… :-)

I call myself a “forever student”. You ask why? Well… 10 years at school, 4 years at teachers training college, 5 years at the Linguistic Institute of the Pedagogical University ( by the way, a college and a university/institute in Russia are two different things:-) ), now 2 years at Saint Michael’s Colleg, always a full-time student, and I am thinking of further studies.

I am having a wonderful experience studying at Saint Michael’s! I feel at home: everyone is friendly, attentive, caring, helpful, and the list of attributes is endless. Classes increase my knowledge and provide an opportunity to link my studies to personal experience and their practical use. I am excited to share my educational and cultural experience with my Russian colleagues when I return home.

I am enjoying my stay here in Vermont, although I believe it is not cold enough here in winter, and not hot enough in summer. It is a gorgeous state! I have fallen in love with the autumnal Green Mountains and sunset on the Lake Champlain awakes romantic poetic soul…

I am a newly-born blogger and all questions and interactions are highly appreciated to help me grow as a blogger.

Sincerely yours,

Natasha