In my EDTC 300 class we were tasked with an assignment to pick a skill to learn all term and blog about our progress! You may have been following along and know how it went or you might be new and therefore I will recap it.

So when I needed to pick a skill I was trying to come up with something with meaning and that interested me. I landed on learning Ukrainian. This was important to me because my family is ukrainian but almost none of us know any ukrainian words. My grandma can understand some words but not speak it. I felt like I wanted something to be more connected to my grandma and the culture.

Week by Week Recap

Week One – Connecting To My Grandma: Learning Ukrainian

In week one I outlined my plan for the term and decided on some resources I wanted to use. I explained why my project was important to me and why I chose this skill to learn.

Week Two – Learning My ABC’S

I started the learning process with the basics of the alphabet. I learned 17 out of 33 letters this week and focused on learning the order and look of the letters. I printed a sheet and followed a video on YouTube to learn. I tried to practice each night to try remember but the memorization part came later in the term.

Week Three – Learning Project Inside A Learning Project

We were challenged this week to use a new medium to share our progress. I learned the entire alphabet this week, how to write the letters, the order, and the pronunciation. This was the first time I was ready to share my progress in a video. The medium I chose was iMovie and YouTube. I have used iMovie before but I tried some really cool editing features. I have never posted on YouTube before so that was also new.

Week Four – Duolingo не безкоштовний? (Duolingo isn’t free?)

I was humbled by Duolingo this week. I learned an assortment of new words with not much of a category to them. I came out of this week knowing random words like cat, home, and mother in Ukrainian. I was humbled because you need “hearts” to keep learning and I was quickly running out of them.

Week Five – It Was A Грубий (Rough) Week!

For my learning this week I dug out a Ukrainian/English/French childrens picture book dictionary. It was the week after thanksgiving and the only thing on my mind was the food I ate. Truly though, I really struggled this week with sickness and felt like I took a step back in my learning after the long weekend. I used this book to learn some common Ukrainian foods.

Week Six – Добрий день (Hello!)

I found my new favourite medium this week to learn with! It was a total twist from the week before and I learned some helpful phrases/words if I ever travelled to Ukraine. I put all my work together from the week in a video using the skills I learned in week three.

Week Seven – Ukrainian Lessons on Spotify!

I utilized my time well this week by listening to a podcast on Spotify during my commute to and from school on the bus. I tried and kind of succeeded at learning the numbers. This podcast was not ideal for learning but I still learned numbers one through nine and could use that to learn the rest just like english.

Week Eight – Hopping On The TikTok Trend

This week was inspired by other classmates blogs and I am glad I tried it. I found a creator that I loved to learn from because she had so many videos. The learning this week of specific words was limited but I feel like I learned about the possibilities on TikTok as well as some random information that the creator was sharing.

Week Nine – Ukrainian Colours and a Little History

I felt the pressure of the end of the term this week and wanted to make sure I learned the colours and some history. I regret not learning the history earlier but better late than never. I went back to the website that I used previously in week six since I liked it so much. The video linked in the blog is really awesome to give some history to the country.

When I review what I learned all term I am really proud of myself! I struggled some weeks more than others but still learned so much. I can now say I know the Ukrainian alphabet, colours, common phrases, and so much more! I can’t wait to share the videos I made with my grandma!

My Top Three Resources

YouTube:

My number one online resource to learn from is YouTube. There is millions of creators to learn from and endless things to learn. I learned from How To Read The Ukrainian Alphabet by Speak Ukrainian. I loved this resource becasue there is a visual and audio aspect. I struggled when I didn’t have both of these things to learn from. There is never a lack of content and if you don’t like one creator there will be another one.

TikTok:

I enjoyed learning from TikTok for three reasons.

• The convenience of it being on my phone and being able to learn anywhere.
• So many creators and lots of content.
• Audio and visual aspects.

TikTok is a great place to learn for the reasons listed above. I learned information I didn’t even know I was wondering because I found  @Ukrainian.with.ira TikTok page. I would just keep scrolling and scrolling until I learned so much information that I never would have thought to Google.

iMovie:

I am not a tech savy person and have never done video editing before but iMovie was so easy to use and has cool features. I used YouTube to learn how to use it and made a video showing how to add images on top of the video in week two. I’m not sure about the compatability on andorids or other devices but it works great on apple products.

I really enjoyed this project because I learned so much about time management, technology, and ukrainian!

This week I wanted to learn the colours but while I was searching for a video to learn from I came across a video by Olly Richards titled “The Ukrainian Language: The Heroic Story of a Language That Just Won’t Quit. The video did a deep dive about the Ukrainian language and also talked about some basic facts. I wish I watched this video at the beginning to have had a better understanding of the language but now is better than never. It is a long video but worth the watch.

After the video I found what I was originally looking for. Names of Colours in Ukrainian by Ukrainian Lessons. I have used this site before but I really like it because there is pictures, pronunciations, the option to be read slower, and overall just super great for learning.

I really struggled this week with my learning. I have been beyond sick for two weeks now. I’m not sure if my brain is cloudy from the sickness or if this is a sign I should be practicing more. I am going to review all the old stuff I learned and go over the alphabet again to help spark my thinking for next week.

I feel like I am running out of places to learn from and this week was a challenge. There seem to be a ton of places to learn from but many apps and websites charge. I found a huge lost of websites but they all require a subscription. Does anyone know of any websites or apps to learn languages from for free?

Since I have seen so many people learning from Tik Tok I wanted to try it myself. I was surprised that their were so many people wanting to teach others on Tik Tok. This week was reassuring and really interesting. I watched many many videos this week and learned from many many creators. Some of the videos were teaching me the basics like hello, bye, and how are you which I have already learned so it was an opportunity to test me on what I remembered. One video I found taught me tricks to some ukrainian words related to english words. It was cool to see similarities in the lnaguages cause I often think they are disconnected.

My favourite creator to learn from is @Ukrainian.with.ira and I will link some of her videos below

• 1000+ Ukrainian Words
• It’s So Beautiful 
• Question Words
• Word Order Isn’t Important

This creator is so awesome and has thousands of videos to learn from! She taught me some things I didn’t even think to search about. One video explains that word order isn’t important in Ukrainian which I never would have expected because it is so important in English. She also has videos appreciating Ukraine because it is such a beautiful country.

Overall, I really liked learning from Tik Tok because of all the different creators available. The videos were really short but I could watch as many as I wanted because there was so many. I also loved the video options and getting to learn from multiple creators. As well, it was super convenient to watch some videos while on the bus, or eating lunch and get some learning in.

Another week of learning Ukrainian! My platform this week was a podcast from Spotify. Ok so I thought I was going to love this because it is by the same people who I learned from last week on a website. They spoke so slow and repeated the word. This podcast was nothing like that! It was so quick and hard to learn from. I definitely struggled without a visual of the word to follow along. I was supposed to learn numbers this week. This podcaast was cool because it had little tests in it to help learn. I am struggling to read the words but I can repeat some by memory. I also learned that it is similar to english how if you know numbers from 1 – 9 then you can figure out the rest based on root words. The convenience of this method was awesome! I take the bus to and from school so I had the perfect opportunity to sit on the bus and listen and learn. I think this podcast is for people a bit more advanced than I am.

This was my best week yet! I’ve been meaning to make a video to share what I learned so I made a video of words that can be helpful when you are travelling.

I was planning on finding a YouTube video to watch this week because at the beginning of the week it was my favourite way to learn. I went to google to find a video and a website popped up titled 14 Basic Ukrainian Phrases for your trip to Ukraine and it was awesome! I was hesitant to use a website because I find it very difficult to just read the words and try sound it out. This website gave the ukrainian word, the  pronunciation, and the english translation! Plus you could click play and it would read the word normal speed and then a bit slower after.

I feel so accomplished this week because I am actually speaking words in ukrainian and its exicitng to see my goal coming together!

So this week I had plans to work with the words I learned last week to speak some sentences and make a video for you guys so I can share my progress. However, the words I learned last week I am not confident in the pronounciations AT ALL. It was much easier to hear Duolingo say the word and repeat it but from memory and trying to sound the words out with my alphabet I wrote it was much harder. I have been practicing the words but I think I need to work with a video tool so I can hear the pronunciation first. I was memorizing the words, how to say them, and what it is translated to but I didn’t actually understand them. So when I was trying to make a video this week I felt like I didn’t know how to sound out the letters to make the word. I will need more practice on my own this week to do it myself rather than watching someone else do it.

In place of putting sentences together this week I am choosing a new medium to learn from today. I found in my house a Ukrainian-English-French dictionary that is in the form of a childrens storybook. This was gifted to my mom from a childhood friend a long time ago and it hasn’t been used much. Every few pages has a new category such as mealtime, at the supermarket, at the park, etc. Each word has pictures which really helps to remember the words.

In honour of Thanksgiving and my family eats some traditional Ukrainian foods I learned the category meal time. I will make a list of the foods I ate this week:

• • Печений індик – Roast Turkey
  • М’ята бараболя – Mashed Potatoes
  • Голубці – Cabbage Rolls
  • Вареники – Perogies
  • Булочки – Buns
  • Сметана – Sour Cream
  • Салатниця – Salad
  • Борщ – Borstch Soup

I found a helpful website titled History of Ukrainian Cuisine that explains some common Ukrainian dishes that are DELICIOUS!

I still wanted to create a video this week to show what I learned however with my luck I got sick on Monday after Thankdgiving and am not ready to make a video.

Using this childrens dictionary I learned all the images on it and am having an easier time memorizing since I have pictures. It did take me a lot longer than other platforms I have used cause I had to sit and compare the words to the alphabet to sound out words. The book was much more independant and made my brain work more instead of just repeating what I heard. I think it will push my to memorize more and think more.

This is week #4 of my learning project and I made some great progress this week!

I began to learn words this week and am slowly (very slowly) beginning to string sentences together. I made a list of all the words I learned at the beginning of the week and then used this to study each day and try remember them. Since I learned the alphabet the last few weeks I was able to sound out the words to learn the pronunciation better. So far learning the words and pronunciation is not to challenging but remembering the words is really hard.

I used Duolingo to help me learn this week and it was awesome at teaching me but had some downfalls aswell. Duolingo is a good source to start with and probably good to learn the whole language as well because it uses active recall strategies. It keeps asking me the same questions until I get it right which I believe is a really effective way to learn. The accesibility of it is so nice because it was easy for me to just do a few lessons each day. However, a really big downfall for the app is you only get five “hearts” and each wrong question costs you a heart. You have to wait until the next day or else purchase more hearts. I don’t like this when I am trying to learn a new language because I am going to make plenty of mistakes and it limits my learning. Besides having limited amounts of hearts Duolingo is so good to learn from becasue it uses active recall and is so easy to learn a few lessons in a day.

This week I learned the second half of the alphabet and practiced writing the letters. I followed the video How to Read The Ukrainian Alphabet. Part 2. By Speak Ukrainian. This video was made by the same person that I watched last week. Again her video was very organized and easy to follow. She speaks clearly and gives great exaples of a comparison from an english word to a ukrainian word.

The biggest challenge of this week was using a new platform to create a video. I have never made a YouTube Video before so I chose to do that. However, I really really struggled to edit a video on YouTube so I ended up using iMovie to edit and create my video. I have used iMovie before however I have never edited the videos and added images on top of the video. The learning curve for me this week was combining multiple videos into one and added the images on top of my video. I still incorporated YouTube since I had to create my account and publish a video. In regard to the SAMR model I think that iMovie, YouTube, etc. fits into the modification category. It allows students to interactively work from home. Prior to this technology if a student was working from home they were not able to share videos of progress and it would be simply emailing and describing progress. As well, since I was able to add images on top of my video I was able to create a clean, professional, and informative video to help others. It would not be possible for me to share my progress in an online class as cleanly and easily as I did.

How I Made My Video:

1. I filmed five seperate videos of me reading the alphabet out loud.
2. I trimmed each video in Photos app on the iPhone
3. I added each video into iMovie and got rid of the fancy transitions between videos for a seemless transition.
4. I wrote each letter on my laptop using OneNote app then screenshotted and cropped each photo.
5. I then turned each screenshot of the letters into videos using the iMovie app. I watched How To Put Photos On Your Video (Phone) by ItsFrida on Youtube.
6. Then I was able to insert the video on top of my original video.
7. This video will explain how to edit a photo on top of my video.

Please ignore the large white box appearing it is just to cover some personal information from the internet.

This Week:

I started to learn the ukrainian alphabet!

I found a super helpful video to watch this week on YouTube called How To Read The Ukrainian Alphabet by Speak Ukrainian. For each letter it would show a picture of it and how to pronounce it. This video was super well done and overall very helpful. It was long and took time to pronounce each letter slowly and clearly while adding examples of a ukrainian word it was used in as well as a comparison to an english word.

I focused on the first half of the alphabet and learned 17 out of 33 letters. This was very difficult as some letters will look the same as english letters but are actually very different.Learning to pronounce the letters was one thing but remembering them was another challenge. I printed a page that had a picture of the letter, with the pronunciation underneath. It is not a great sheet to learn from but works well to help remember. To help me remember I am just referncing the page multiple times a day and saying the alphabet out loud. I only learned half this week so I can really try and focus on the first 17 letters.

Upcoming Weeks:

Next week I am going to finish learning the rest of the alphabet and will hope to be ready enough to share a video with you guys of my progress!

Introduction To My Learning Project

I have absolutely zero experience with understanding or speaking Ukrainian unless it is the name of my favourite Ukrainian dishes. I was inspired to choose this language to learn because my Grandma used to be able to speak it however she lost the language before I could even walk. My mom could understand some common words but not enough to pass it onto me or my siblings. I want to feel a connection to my grandma and mom by sharing something that is very important to them. In the last few years I have spent more time participating in Ukrainian traditions than I ever have and feel like learning the language should be next.

I am beginning at the basics and starting with the alphabet. I am planning to use many resources such as Duolingo, a Ukrainain dictionary, and YouTube videos.  Once I learn how to write and pronounce the letters of the alphabet I will progress to learning common day words. My goal by the end of the term is to be able to speak to my mom and grandma. Even though they cannot speak the language they can both understand some common words.