Olga Cherkahchenko

I am Olga Cherkashchenko, an ESL secondary school teacher from Ukraine, Crimea. My country can be described as a land of glorious history lasting from Kyivskaya Russ to Zaporizska Sich and “Orange” revolution.

My hometown is Yalta – the center of Southern Coast of the Black Sea. The sea gave the name to the town: from Greek “jalos” – the shore. For some centuries, Yalta had been a small settlement and in 1838 it reserved the status of the town. In1860 the Emperor’s family purchased the lands in the South Coast and Yalta began to develop as a fashionable health-resort. The splendid palaces were built in Livadia, Massandra, Oreanda.

Now to the services of the guests are more than 130 holiday homes and tourist centers. The visitors can admire the famous palace-and-park ensembles and the Nikitsky Botanical Gardens. You can rise by the cableway to the top of Ai-Petry plateau and visit Chekhov’s house-museum “Belaya Dacha”.

Presently, I work in a Secondary School specializing in Foreign languages as an ESL teacher and I conduct the course in Literature of Great Britain for the 10th form pupils.

Being a JEEM scholar, I’ll use every opportunity to study the educational system of the USA, to understand the differences from education in Ukraine. My particular interests are students’ motivation, inclusive education, and teaching tolerance.

My strong belief is that it is very important as a teacher of English to visit the USA to develop personal attitude to the country’s culture. I would like to learn from other professionals working in the same field and I hope to learn innovative techniques and gather teaching material to share with my colleagues in Ukraine.