The English Teachers. RF Duncan-Goodwillie
I’ve been teaching for a couple of years and I really like it.
PP: I’m from Russia and I graduated here. I’ve been working as a teacher for more than three years. I basically did my best to educate myself to be a better professional and actually studying English.
RFDG: Polina, Russia seems like an obvious choice for you, but why Moscow in particular?
PP: My family moved here when I was 13 and I didn’t particularly like the idea of leaving my family and friends to go elsewhere. And Moscow is a capital city. There are more opportunities to find a job here and the salaries are better. I wouldn’t go back to my native town and work there.
RFDG: Gary, what about you? Why Russia and Moscow?
GK: I was teaching in South Korea for a good deal of money and I thought it was great because I could save up a lot and pay off my college debt, but I ran into some problems in terms of the work environment and housing situation. So, I decided to leave and cut my stay short by six months. I was offered a position with a school in Kazan before I went to live in South Korea, but I turned it down because I wasn’t sure I wanted to live in Kazan.
RFDG: Why not?
GK: It was a smaller city and I was hoping for something more like a big metropolis. When I suggested St Petersburg or Moscow, they explained only Kazan was available so I turned them down for South Korea. Six months later I decided to try another chain of schools and took a position there in Moscow.
RFDG: What made you choose teaching?
PP: I was actually going to become a philologist, but my language skills didn’t allow me to go into a linguistic university and being a teacher wasn’t a very popular profession. The competition for linguistics was higher than for teaching and I didn’t have enough points to go there. So I went into a teaching university and I found I liked it and had a lot of ideas for teaching. I saw a lot of bad teachers at university and a couple of good ones. I compared them and understood how not to teach and which direction to move in. I took it as a challenge and thought I could do it well.
RFDG: Who had a stronger influence, the bad role models or the good ones?
She laughs.
PP: The bad ones. I blame my German teacher for not using the right strategy to teach me German. It stopped me from going into the linguistic university. Had I known that they weren’t good, I might have chosen another one and I might have gotten into where I wanted to. So, I thought if I had this skill maybe I could change the world for someone and they could get into the right university!
RFDG: Gary, why teaching for you?
GK: I’ve been an activist for a long time. I was always focused primarily on the notion of deepening democracy. I joined lots of political groups and took part in some campaigning. I thought it would be possible to change the world, or at least my own country. But I noticed that when I worked for a third party campaign in the United States – it was for a guy called Ralph Nader – I would go door-to-door talking to people and they would say, “I agree with what he stands for, but it’s not possible to get him into office because no-one else will vote for him because they don’t believe it’s possible.”
The point is that I realised just campaigning isn’t going to change the system since people don’t understand how the system works and how to interact with other people. So, I thought that maybe it has to start from education and instead of going to protests I would learn how to teach. In the end I hope to start my own school and make changes that way by teaching people how to communicate better and understand the system in which they live.
RFDG: So, for you it’s not that you’ve arrived at the destination, it’s more like this is part of the way there on your journey?
GK: Well, I don’t think the journey ever really ends, but yes.
*
Daria Starova (DS)
Setting the scene: I conducted this interview with Daria while going through my annual battle with a chest infection which seems to happen like clockwork at this time in the Russian winter. She is sitting opposite me in a quiet teacher’s room on a Saturday afternoon while I struggle to breathe. An experienced teacher, she has a lot of things to share.
DS: I started teaching when I was in my second year at university. I did it just as way to earn some pocket money. I was at a linguistic university, but I was studying psychology. I had my first private student, then another couple and then I finished university and got an office job.
I was a manager in Great Britain and Northern Ireland for some language courses. I did some visa work and found programmes – mostly Masters – for people. After a year I got bored and left. The only thing I could do was teaching, so I got back to teaching and during that year I still had some students and I found more. Two years later I did CPE and two years after that I did my CELTA.
RFDG: So, teaching wasn’t the first choice?
DS: When I started teaching I was very scared. I was scared of children and their parents. But my first student’s parents recommended me and then more recommended me and I discovered I really like language. I like to explain it, I like to look at nuances and I still have this love for language, probably more than teaching. I never get bored listening to the same audio again and again. I really like listening to language.
RFDG: Where was university?
DS: It was Moscow Linguistic University, but because it was a linguistic university we probably had more language classes than psychology classes, so I learned English and French.
RFDG: So, Moscow was almost a natural choice. Have you ever thought about going anywhere else?
She pauses, searching back through history and thinking about it deeply.
DS: I have but not as a language teacher. Now I’m married and it wouldn’t be easy to go somewhere. And maybe I’m a little scared of going somewhere or teaching in a new environment and country. I haven’t travelled much, you see.
RFDG: If you hadn’t become a teacher, what would you have done?
DS: I don’t know. At one point I really believed I was meant to become a teacher, but then I did my CELTA and I understood that I’m not (laughs). Maybe there is something else for me because it seems that my brain needs more work than teaching. After the intensive month of CELTA I was exhausted, but I could only work with language and I felt my brain was hungry for something completely different, so I became a teacher. But maybe I’ll do something else in the future.
RFDG: Were you offered a job after CELTA by the same school?
DS: Actually, I asked for it. I came up to my trainer and asked if I could work there. He brought me to the Recruitment department and I began to work.
RFDG: Why did you pick that specific school?
DS: Because I prepared here for CPE* and I had two wonderful teachers. I really liked it and I think I have a kind of intuition for good teaching. I know when it’s done properly. When I came here I felt it was done properly, unlike my university. They won my trust here.
*Note: Cambridge Proficiency English is an exam that shows candidates have mastered English to an exceptional level.
RFDG: Is there a big contrast between teaching at university