How Much Wood Can a Woodchuck Chuck? (And other potentially disastrous ideas)

Today I began my internship at the museum, which is all of a 30 second walk from my home. I was grateful for that today, as it has been rather cold all day, around the upper 40s and lower 50s Fahrenheit. The residents keep promising me warmer weather soon, and then, they say, we'll take a day trip to Lake Onega to swim.

Tamara Pavlovna, the museum director who coordinated my entire trip, had the day off work, so my first day at the museum was quite easy. The women there sat me down and brought me book after book of material on the Veps people, more interested in helping me with my research than in me helping them with anything. The materials they have are quite interesting too. Old newspaper articles, invitations to Veps holidays long passed, and one book from the late 1800s written in the old orthography—a challenging read.

Interesting as it all was, I despaired of finding material related to my particular subject of study, the preservation and revitalization of the Veps language. They had scores of articles about the culture, holidays, toponyms of Veps origins, but nothing, it seemed to me, about the language today. Then they brought me a book published in 2008 in Petrozavodsk, a city I will visit in a week or two. The book is a collection of scholarly articles about the status of the language today. Eureka!

Unfortunately, the articles are all written in technical language, and by that time in the afternoon I was already worn out from reading Russian all day. So I set the book aside and went home early. Hopefully, I will be able to purchase my own copy, if not here then in Petrozavodsk. No matter how much rest I get, I will not be able to finish the entire volume during my stay, and I'm certain there is a lot of valuable information there.

After I had gone home to relax, one of the women from yesterday's birthday party dropped by, bringing along her granddaughter, Angeliya, who is about 15 or 16. They wanted to hire me as her English tutor for 200 rubles, or just less than $7 an hour. As far as I can tell, that is a rather hefty wage here for a language tutor, so I was honored. I invited Angelina to come tomorrow at 7 p.m. for her first lesson, feeling quite excited and proud of myself.

But suddenly, I realized I have no idea what I'm doing. I am entirely unequipped to teach my own language, especially for a high wage. I don't know how long Angelina has studied English or what she needs to work on—grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, reading comprehension, or what have you. And even if I knew, I'm not sure I know how to teach English. I have never been a language tutor before. I have no textbooks or exercises prepared. Hopefully, my linguistics education will come in handy... somehow.

My current plan is this: we will start with some easy conversation (How old are you? Do you have any siblings? What sports do you like to play? etc.), so I can get an idea of her skill level. Depending on how that goes, perhaps we will try to read "O Captain! My Captain!" from my Walt Whitman volume. It shouldn't be too challenging a poem, I think, and I've already prepared a list of the more difficult vocabulary terms with translations. I wish I had brought a better book of poetry, something with more obvious rhythm and rhyme that might be a more accessible to non-Americans. Do Russians even read much blank verse poetry? I wonder.

I have also collected a few English tongue twisters, like "She sells seashells...", which we can try out if they're not too difficult on the Russian tongue. And after that, I'm not sure what we'll do. Perhaps we'll go through my music collection and talk about song lyrics or watch video clips on the internet. I can always teach her slang, but I have a feeling that won't impress dear babushka, who will be paying for the lesson. Maybe my student will have some ideas of her own.

So here's my plea: if any of you reading this come up with suggestions for teaching a Russian teenager English before 7 p.m. tomorrow (that's 11 a.m. in Michigan), I'm all ears. Please. I would really like to impress my first pupil.