The English Teachers. RF Duncan-Goodwillie
teaching we listened to all the audios in the books and we never did it at university. So, I had to work on my listening skills myself.
Of course our teachers spoke to us in English at university but it’s not the same when you listen to a variety of accents. And it wasn’t the communicative approach, it’s more like grammar translation.
The teacher’s attitude was, “We know everything and who are you!? You are stupid students who don’t remember 100 phrases by heart.” And they would say, “Oh, in my time, we would learn pages by heart and you can’t even learn 10 expressions.”
RFDG: Why does that attitude exist?
DS: I don’t know. I think it’s something to do with our school of thought. Maybe because they were from the Soviet Union and they didn’t communicate much with their colleagues. There was this kind of arrogance coming from teachers.
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Leandri Butterworth (LB)
Setting the scene: The coffee shop is uncharacteristically empty on the afternoon we meet in the heart of Moscow. It’s not the only unusual occurrence. Leandri is rarely in this part of Moscow but has come in on her day off to pick up her pay. It’s a long journey but she speaks with the special lightness I’ve come to see as characteristic of the Cape Town accent. She wears black-rimmed glasses and her hair is a mass of lively curls. On the bare brick wall behind her is a faded map of the world.
LB: I started teaching in Cape Town after university in 2012 and worked for a year before doing my CELTA. I taught there for another year and then I came to Russia where I’ve been for three years now.
RFDG: Why did you want to get into teaching?
LB: Originally, when I was at university, I wanted to get into high school English teaching. I wanted to teach literature because I’ve always had a soft spot for it. I thought – like many people who go into the Arts do – that I would maybe do ESL for a year or two and pay off my debts. Then when I got my first ESL job, by day two I realised that was what I wanted to do because I felt it was really good knowing that I was helping people, rather than teaching Shakespeare to kids who couldn’t care less.
RFDG: Is that a common problem in South African high school education?
LB: I think it’s a common problem in high school education everywhere when I listen to what people have to say about it. The way English is dealt with in high school, there’s not a lot of freedom about what you can and can’t say. I remember we were doing a poem and my teacher was explaining it. I had an observation about how I had interpreted it and her answer was, “No. That’s wrong. That’s not in the syllabus.” And then she moved on. I got a little disillusioned by that.
RFDG: Why did you come to Moscow specifically?
LB: At school English and History were my favourite subjects and they were what I studied at university. In grade 11 in English we did Animal Farm and in History we did Soviet Russia, and I remember our teachers made us watch Dr Zhivago. I fell in love with the idea of the country and I knew if I was going to go abroad I wouldn’t go to the East. There’s just never been any reason for me to. So, I think if I was going to go abroad and teach it was always going to be Russia because I kind of have a soft spot for the culture.
RFDG: If you hadn’t become a teacher, what do you think you would have done?
LB: I never gave it any thought. Being a teacher was always it. I don’t think I had any back-up plans.
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Irina Grekova (IG)
Setting the scene: We sit in a smallish classroom on the top floor of a six-story building in Tverskaya Street just up from the Kremlin. It’s a cold day in early spring and the sky is clear. Nonetheless, I have to open a window since the central heating is on full blast. Irina sits opposite me, a woman filled with an enthusiasm which is infectious. She smiles broadly as she talks from decades of experience, every inch the confident and compassionate teacher trainer. There’s a touch of strangeness about this situation. A year ago she interviewed me to create listening material for her students. Now the tables have turned.
IG: I graduated in 1986 from Moscow Pedagogical University as an English and German teacher. I worked in two schools teaching English and German. I had more German classes. It was an ordinary school. I worked there for three years before the Perestroika. When it started, I joined commercial English courses teaching adults. I never went back to school. I met some interesting people at these courses. Somehow, I became popular because schools I had previously worked for started calling me back.
I was invited to teach teachers at the Chemistry department of MSU. Most of them were PhDs and professors. They asked me to design a course for them on the basis of Beatles’ songs, which I did. I spent a year teaching them, maybe two.
After this course at MSU, I did a very interesting teacher development course on Suggestopedia. It’s an intensive method of teaching and learning English designed by Georgy Lozanov. This course was two months long. Then I was invited to work for the centre and worked there for four years.
At some point in my life I stopped teaching and I worked for different businesses. For example, I worked for an investment company “Freemasons Capital” and a travel agency organising hiking tours in the Caucasus.
But then an interesting thing happened. A friend of mine gave me a call and suggested doing a training arranged by an Israeli company using a multimedia programme called “English Discoveries.” It was a free training.
After doing it I started looking for a teaching job. An interesting coincidence occurred. Somebody saw my work on “English Discoveries” and gave me a call. It happened to be “Lingvo Ru”, one of BKC’s schools. Working there was interesting because the school director asked me if I could design a speaking club programme for all levels for one month. I said yes and that’s how I started my cooperation with “Lingvo Ru.”
I did CELTA in 1999 and DELTA in 2001. After that I became an ADOS for satellite schools*, the head of the teacher training department.
*Note: “satellite schools” usually refer to locations outside the city centre.
RFDG: That’s a long career of teaching. Why did you decide teaching was the best career for you in the first place?
IG: This might sound strange, but I never had any other ideas. When I made my first career choice – I think I was 10 – I lived in Cuba at that time. I had a best friend. We both chose a career that we would pursue later. I don’t know why I liked English. I spoke Spanish and I lived in Cuba for six years. My best friend wanted to become a doctor and she is a doctor now.
Maybe it’s because my parents were teachers. My father was a Physics teacher, but he worked as a school principal all his life. My mom taught Russian and Literature. Many conversations at home were about school.
RFDG: But you also studied German. Did English come as a natural, unconscious choice?
IG: At some point, when I was unemployed, I decided to try teaching Russian as a foreign language. (I got a second education at Pushkin State University in Moscow.) But I didn’t enjoy it. I had to abandon my background. I had to abandon English completely which was a disaster. I was teaching native speakers and I wasn’t allowed to speak English.
I also had to think about music, poetry and cultural background, so I would feel less in context with all these realia. And it wasn’t as appealing as what I’m