Virtual pen pals: ENGin pairs Ukrainians and Americans for online English conversations

Dariia Misko sounded remarkably calm as she described her life in Kyiv, Ukraine, where she frequently hears what sounds like popcorn popping in the distance.

The sound is attacks by military drones from Russia.

"I have repeatedly heard explosions and the work of air defense," said Misko, a 26-year-old Ukrainian studying for a master's degree in psychology at a university in Kyiv. "The past month of October, my birthday was the only day when the Russians did not launch [drones] across Ukraine. All other days in October, unfortunately, we were constantly subjected to attempted different attacks."

Misko touched briefly on these grim circumstances while chatting remotely with Ian Foertsch, a 38-year-old software developer in Golden Valley. But their hourlong conversation focused mostly on cheerful things: Foertsch's new video game, Misko's upcoming visit to her brother in her hometown of Rivne, Ukraine.

The two have been having conversations regularly since January thanks to ENGin, a nonprofit program that pairs Ukrainians with English speakers for casual weekly one-on-one remote conversations.

ENGin (pronounced "engine") is designed to help Ukrainians improve their English proficiency. In many parts of the world, English is the most common second language and English skills can expand opportunities. But Ukraine has among the lowest rate of English fluency in Europe, said the organization's founder, Katerina Manoff.

"Spoken fluency can open up new professional and academic opportunities — whether to get a degree, a promotion, to work in international company or to grow businesses by reaching outside the country," said Manoff, a 37-year-old Ukrainian native who has lived in the United States since she was 8.

"And they're not learning language in a vacuum but getting to know a real person and understanding the culture of their country," she said. "It really helps people feel like global citizens."

In twice-weekly meetings conducted over Google Meets, Misko and Foertsch talk about what's going on in their lives.

"Usually 60 percent or more of our time is occupied by us just decompressing about our lives, talking about our issues at work, with our families, etc.," Foertsch said. "We always try to lighten the mood at the end of the call by talking about things that we're excited for in the upcoming week."

Misko does not speak English flawlessly — she hesitates occasionally or stumbles over pronunciations — but her conversation is smooth. That's partly thanks to taking English in school since second grade and partly thanks to the American music, TV and movies (Beyoncé, "Shrek," Disney princesses) she has consumed throughout her life.

But she also credits her conversations with Foertsch.

For many ENGin participants, these cross-cultural friendships are as important as the language practice.

"I'm not really sure if I told Ian this before, but I treasure it and he's really become like a friend and a buddy to me," Misko said. "To know that there is someone across the ocean with whom I have a connection is cool."

Foertsch was feeling both isolated in his home and horrified by the Russian invasion when he heard about ENGin. He volunteered and converses with two other students in addition to Misko.

"I went into volunteering with ENGin expecting to meet basically an alien, someone whose life is completely different, with different beliefs and sensibilities, someone from a culture I have nothing in common with," he said.

Instead, he has met people much like him, "who want the same things in life, who have similar senses of humor and are interested in the same things," he said.

"My Ukrainian friends have the same struggles in life, the same loving but sometimes difficult relationships with their families, the same desires to make a life and a future for themselves and their families," Foertsch said.

"The only real difference between me and them is they're doing all this while lying awake at night in the shelter of their bathrooms or basements listening to the sound of incoming drones or cruise missiles, wondering if this will be the one that gets them."

Beyond imagining

ENGin began in 2020 as a small project for high school students, young Ukrainians who needed to improve their fluency and volunteers who needed community service work for college applications.

"It grew way beyond what I could have imagined," Manoff said.

ENGin already has attracted about 50,000 participants. Roughly half are Ukrainian "students," the others English-speaking volunteers, most in the United States but also in the United Kingdom, Canada and elsewhere.

The program now has participants in 140 countries, Manoff said. She lives outside Washington, D.C., but the program is run primarily out of Ukraine, with a mostly Ukrainian staff.

Manoff noticed the need for the program while mentoring some teenagers in Ukraine. One in particular was very intelligent but her spoken English wasn't great.

"I realized this is a very common problem — even the brightest students struggle with it," said Manoff, whose own English carries only a faint melodic hint of an accent.

ENGin is "the only place where any Ukrainian can grow and speak without putting in a ton of money," Manoff said. The Ukrainian students pay a one-time fee of just under $20 for the service.

"Some people pay private tutors $20 a week," she said. "What we did was create a universally accessible way to have a real person to talk to."

Volunteers are asked to commit to three months of weekly online meetings with one student. But many stay on long past that, some for several years, and can take on as many students as they like. They're also asked for donations to the program.

Although volunteers are given training materials and provided with possible discussion topics, there are no particular requirements beyond the conversations themselves. ENGin matches volunteers and students partly on shared interests.

Volunteer Deb Robison, 65, of St. Paul has been talking since May to a Ukrainian woman who moved to London with her 5-year-old son to keep him safe, and was forced to leave her husband and parents behind.

"We're not following a curriculum, not using any particular materials — we just chat and Zoom," she said. "We talk some about the war, but not a lot."

But part of what she values in ENGin is "having a connection to somebody whose world is so very, very different from my own. It's interesting to learn just the personal perspective of the sacrifice she's had to make."

Learning about the lives of people elsewhere in the world also has been a big draw for volunteer Jack Kilduff, 33, a web developer who lives in St. Paul. He has a couple of ENGin buddies.

In a recent conversation, Kilduff talked to Tamara Varda, 26, also a web developer, about the American custom of homecoming weekends and about what she did on Halloween, a holiday that is catching on in Ukraine.

But Varda also expressed her apprehensions about the future.

"Who will suffer from this?" she said. "You don't know what exactly news you will read in the morning. And some of them is so painful that you don't even know how to live with all this stuff."

Kilduff's other buddy, Andrii Nimkovych, 31, a grant manager and student working on a master's degree in nonprofit organization, had even more harrowing stories. He's in Kharkiv, a little under 20 miles from the Russian border and near the front line. He received a mobilization notice last summer but as a student was able to avoid joining the military, he said.

"I am south of Kharkiv so I am a little bit safer than in the city," Nimkovych told Kilduff. "The whole territory of Ukraine is not safe but it's worse in the cities because Russia's main aim is to destroy them and their infrastructure."

Nimkovych maintained a cheerful demeanor throughout their recent conversation. His natural optimism has helped him adapt to a new reality, he said. He appreciates how ENGin has helped improve his English, which he sometimes uses in his work.

"Even now I'm not fluent because my accent is not so pretty and I use easy words that aren't interesting or from serious smart books," Nimkovych said. "But comparing myself to my previous level and today it's good. It's starting from small steps when talking with Jack each week. .... after half a year, the results are big, so huge."

Kilduff appreciates the learning experience he has received from the conversations with his Ukrainian friends.

"I understand my ignorance of the world a lot better now," he said. "Sometimes you get so American-centric that you forget that there's 8 billion people outside of America."