Serzh Velychanskyi, a 35-year-old journalist, host, and the founder of Improv Club in Ukraine, has pioneered the use of improvisational skills as a method to learn English.
Velychanskyi founded Improversity, a school for improving conversational English, four years ago, and has taught over 200 people since then.
His classes, based on improvisational exercises, are perfect for those who understand English but struggle to speak fluently.
“I use maximum improvisation to teach people to think in English,” Velychanskyi told the Kyiv Post.
Although he doesn’t have a teaching degree, the trainer has a solid experience of using English as a host and a journalist.
He hosted entertainment events during the Euro 2012 European Football Championship and at Euro Club parties during Eurovision 2017 in Kyiv in May.
Velychanskyi is also the anchorman of a live Englishspeaking program called “Let’s Talk” on the Ukrinform website.
Back in 2009, after traveling around the United States, where improvisational comedy clubs are an institution, he decided to bring improvisation to Ukrainian society.
Velychanskyi started Improv Club, where people came to have fun and relax, he says. Later on, in 2013, he decided to combine his two passions — improvisation and English — and founded Improversity.
“It is a unique thing. It is teaching via improvisation,” he said.
Methodology
Velychanskyi says that Improversity is more of a methodology than a school. He compares himself to a fitness trainer, who gives tasks and gets people pumped up.
“If a person understands English but can’t speak it, they’re my client,” Velychanskyi said.
The fact that someone understands the language means that they have the basic knowledge needed to join the Improversity, he says.
Velychanskyi believes that traditional education methods, which emphasize the accumulation of knowledge, aren’t effective at teaching conversational skills. He says that some students simply can’t use what they already know, and instead of breaking the communicational barrier, they just keep learning more and more.
“But it’s not about how much you know, it’s about how well you can use what you know,” he said. Because improvisation helps to “activate” the acquired knowledge, Velychanskyi first shows his students that they know more than they think.
For instance, gives them the task of making up a sentence with only five words that all start with the same letter. He says that such exercises set limits for our mind, which helps students recall words they know, but don’t use.
“With time it becomes easier to accomplish the task, which means it’s easier to pull out these words at any moment while communicating in English,” he said.
Velychanskyi says that step-bystep, he gives more complicated tasks to develop students’ skills with each training class.
By the end of the course, he offers improvisational exercises that require thinking in English.
For instance, in the game “Change,” students make up a story, but can be interrupted by audience anytime with the word “change,” which means they have to change the last sentence, along with the angle of the story as many times as audience wants.
To encourage attendants to be active, Velychanskyi offers prizes from his business partners, such as barber shop certificates. He gives points to those who take part in improvisation and suggest topics for exercises. Those who get the most points, get prizes.
He says that although people don’t want to seem childish playing the games, they actually like it.
“It’s a funny thing about adults — they want to play, but it’s important not to call it “games,” he said.
Apart from improving students’ English, Improversity classes teach improvisation and public speaking.
Oleksii Omelchuk, 31, attended Improversity classes in 2015–2016. As a clinical research associate he communicated with foreign colleagues a lot. Having a basic knowledge of English, he wanted to improve his conversational skills, and Velychansyi’s training helped him, he says.
“I am confident now. I don’t feel awkward while talking to foreigners anymore,” he told the Kyiv Post.
How it works
Improversity classes don’t have a set schedule or set location where they are held — they are also improvised every time. Velychanskyi usually draws up a new program with a new schedule and announces it via Facebook.
A four-hour intensive class costs Hr 400, while a course with one class a week costs $100 per month.
Training classes are usually held in cozy restaurants in the center of Kyiv in groups of 7–12 people, as this allows the trainer to pay attention to everyone
“I have small groups so that I can give everyone an opportunity to take part, and not let them be passive,” he said.
Velychanskyi says his students are mostly 25–35 years old — goal-oriented people with stable incomes. “They usually know what they want, and don’t have much time,” he says.
Liudmyla Andreieva, a recruiter, attended Improversity in 2014. She says that she chose the course over numerous other speaking clubs as she wanted to try something unusual, and the schedule of classes suited her.
She says that the training helped her get out of her shell. And apart from practicing English, she had a good time in the classes, she says. “It was fun and interesting, and there was lots of laughing,” she told the Kyiv Post.
Despite the busy schedule, Velychanskyi hopes to start a new project in September — an improvisational club for English-speaking people, Improv Club English.
He says that the club will gather once a month “for fun, social development and networking.”
In future, Velychanskyi hopes to create an improvisational troupe and hold charity evenings, with fundraising for social projects, he says.
www.facebook.com/IMPROVersity
