Browsing All Posts filed under »Culture«

Miscommunication Mishaps

May 1, 2013 by

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Coming to a country where both the language and the alphabet are unknown to you is a mission many may find daunting.  Regardless, all of us TLG volunteers took the metaphorical plunge, packed our bags and came to Georgia, after explaining to everyone back home that it’s the country, not the state in the USA. […]

The Names of Georgia, Part 2

April 29, 2013 by

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When I started taking Spanish in the seventh grade, the first thing the teacher did was assign all the students Spanish names etymologically equivalent to their real ones. Since my name is Nick, I was given the name Nico. It was a painless way for all of us to feel a little Spanish, and so […]

Keyboard Transcription and English Reading

April 19, 2013 by

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I have lately encountered an unexpected source of interference when teaching my students English: their keyboards! Let me explain. Computers sold in Georgia most commonly have a regular English keyboard – QWERTY, with Latin characters. Russian keyboards might be a far second, and keyboards with actual Georgian characters printed on the keys are highly scarce. […]

Tamar the Great and Patriarchal Georgia

April 17, 2013 by

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Tamar the Great ruled in Georgia from 1184-1213, the Georgian “Golden Age.” She is called Queen Tamar the Great by some sources, but during her rule she was referred to as “მეფე,”  or “King.” I have been fascinated with Queen Tamar’s reign since I first heard of it at orientation. As an American woman living […]

The Pizza Aquarium

March 20, 2013 by

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In The Long And Short Of ‘It’ I talked about some issues surrounding the “short i” and mentioned that I hadn’t come up with a way to get students to produce a short i, or /ɪ/. After some trial and error, I have managed to come upon a strategy that seems to have worked, at […]

The Names of Georgia

March 18, 2013 by

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Every TLG volunteer has had the horrible experience of hearing someone say, upon being told about teaching English in Georiga, “What, you mean like Atlanta or something?” Subsequently we’ve probably all had the thought, “Seriously, why do Georgia the country and Georgia the American state have the same name?” Well, to answer that question, we […]

Expectation Vs. Reality

March 14, 2013 by

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My orientation to Georgia took place 5 months ago at the Bazaleti Hotel in Tbilisi. The 108 other new volunteers and I stepped off of a 36 hour travel day at the tender hour of 4 a.m. and after patchy sleep schedules, blood tests, and our first purchases with lari and visuals of the Georgian […]

Of Matriarchs and Men: an interview with a school Director.

March 11, 2013 by

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    An interview with Zanati Public School’s school director and literature teacher, Manana Tediashvili. Georgia is a land of local flavouring, from its villages dotting the sweeping hillsides and rugged mountains right on up to its administrative and governing styles.  As an English teacher attached to a tiny village school, I’ve been repeatedly impressed […]

The Inner Circle

February 6, 2013 by

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Georgian friendship and family ties are strong, and Georgia is a fairly small country, which means that it often seems like everybody knows everybody. As I become more and more integrated into the country, and into family and community life here, that feeling continues to grow. Part of this strong, tightly connected network of classmates […]

Rainy Days are Best with a Side of Soup

January 28, 2013 by

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Rainy days are when I make a not-so-lovely cup of insta-coffee, grab a book, and read those rationed chapters I have been holding myself back from reading. Being from sunny southern California, I find the rain is quite enjoyable… for about a day. It’s nice listening to the cliché of rain droplets hitting the tin […]

American Saqartvelo

January 25, 2013 by

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In my last post, I wrote about the things I’ll miss in Georgia. I’ll get to why that’s important, in a minute. Now that the holidays are nearly over, I’ve been looking for jobs and apartments. I’m relocating to Iowa City, Iowa, home of the University of Iowa, where I plan to eventually go to […]

The Things I Miss…

January 24, 2013 by

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It’s crazy to think about it, but my year in Georgia’s already over. I’m now back in the United States, getting all of my affairs in order and job-searching. It’s nice to be back, but I’m finding I already miss a lot of things about Saqartvelo. I miss my Georgian family and friends, my colleagues, […]

Parallel Worlds

January 2, 2013 by

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I fell in love with Georgia during my first semester teaching. I got lucky with a great training group, a loving host-family, and a welcoming school. I went to supras, I clumsily danced, I trimmed grape leaves, and I taught a batch of second graders the difference between their head, shoulders, knees, and toes. Some […]

The only child vs. Georgia

December 30, 2012 by

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I love traveling alone. I’ve found it to be a great way to relax, rebalance, and explore. When I started TLG, I assumed I would have plenty of chances to see Georgia on my own. After all, if you’re moving to a foreign country where you don’t speak the predominant language and you don’t know […]

Seasons and Solfège

December 27, 2012 by

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There are so many basic facts about the world that we take for granted – things that have surrounded us our entire lives, things that we never even considered might be called into question. Things that no one really talks about because everyone is expected to already know them and everyone more or less assumes […]

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