Turtle Conservation Project

Hi everyone! This summer I'm going to Bali for Turtle Conservation Project. This idea came up to my mind in March and I decided to apply for a volunteer program IVHQ. The thing is that the fee for the program is $1180 (I've already paid for the air-tickets - $700), and that's quite a lot for me as I work as a teacher in Russia, and the average salary here is $300. It seems impossible to save up money for this incredible adventure.

Why am I doing this? The answer is simple. All my life I wanted to become a teacher, and finally my first year as a teacher is coming to its end. It's a little bit sad for me that I won't see my students for a long time. But I don't want to miss an opportunity to show them by example of my own that LEARNING ENGLISH IS WORTH TRYING.

You know, in Russia a lot of students don't understand why they need to learn foreign languages. My goal is to urge that foreign languages are vitally important!

Anyway, students don't have any motivation. In 2016 I went to the USA as an exchange student and wonderful things happened to me there. When I tell my students about them, they get excited and full of motivation they start learning English somehow but then their powers undermine. Is it enough motivating?

Now I want to show them that our world is not just Russia and a part of Europe, but our world is much bigger! And altogether we can help people or animals doing volunteer activities in different countries. Isn't this exciting for them?

When I told my students that I'm going to Bali for Turtle Conservation Program and help turtles, and then let them go into the ocean, kids' eyes were full of happy tears! They were like 'Wow! That's impossible! We can see something like this only on TV.'

Yes, they can see it only on TV till they learn English. That is the way I want to motivate them to learn languages. Apart from that, I want to use my volunteer experience back in Russia in educational purposes.

Here we don't have any problems in my region about saving animals. So I want to tell my students that there are problems in the whole world we need to solve. And it doesn't matter that Indonesia is far away from us and we almost don't know anything about this country and its people, we should know that we can help animals and people there. We should all be together.

Also, as I travel sometimes, I bring different things for my pupils from different countries. For example, from the USA I brought children books! If you could see primary kids' faces! It's worth working as a teacher to see them.

From the UK I also brought some eductional books and an interview with a British singer I met at a festival in London. So, we sometimes listen to her songs in English and they know that meeting a cool singer is real if you know English.

I don't know yet what I might bring for them from Bali, but I know for sure, I'd bring them more motivation and small presents as rewards for their hard work in learning English.

By this action of going for Turtle Conservation project I want to show that 'if you learn a foreign language, you broaden your horizons, mind and the way you live.'

Hope you can help me, and as a present, I will send you a postcard from Russia and from Bali!
Thank you in advance!