Job Discussion Forums

[Confederate]

I have taught at some different places during the last year here in Moscow and just thinking about the good, the bad and the ugly of working here. I have worked at banks, credit and finance companies, manufactoring plants, software development companies, and a publishing company. Yesterday, I started a job that I never expected, I teach a English class at a fittness gym. It will be a while before I decide if this will be a good class or not, but at least there is a lot of nice things to look at in this job. Most of my jobs have been pretty good, only one has not worked out so fat, a bunch of kids working at a publishing company skipped a lot of classes, then complained they did not understand anything, but so far that has been the only class to give me any trouble. I have even taught a class at one of the police headquarters here and that was a pretty good class, but this class at a fittness gym was totally unexpected. This is one of those jobs that I can gain new clients from, the gym is in the north of Russia, owned by an American, membership is very expensive, mostly businessmen and their wives. I already ran out of business cards and will get some more made tomorrow. I teach the employees at this gym, but I also get to meet and make new clients in the restaurant and bar before and after my classes. This is one of those situations where you have a chance to make new clients from a class, but I think you can do that from most classes any way.

The most fun class I had was with a German chemical company I teach at, the students are Russian, and can speak perfect German because this company is German, when they get frustrated, sometimes they will curse in German thinking I do not understand, but I do know German, you can imagine their shock and surprise when I answered them in German. But this is one of my better classes, the students try real hard and do study on their own. I also liked the class I taught at the police dept., since I am a former state police officer in Georgia and South Carolina, I was able to get to go to the police target range and try out a few fun toys, I like guns if you can not tell.

The worse class I've had so far was with a publishing company, a bunch of kids really. They were getting free classes paid for by the publishing company, so they figuared that they only had to show up when they felt like it. Plus, I think the school over rated their skill, but any way, that was the only class I had go bust on me. The students really did not care about learning English.

Anybody care to share any of their Good, bad and Ugly stories about teaching here in Russia?
Georgia Confederate

[alekto]

Ok, I shan't name the school although anyone who's read my posts should be able to figure out who this is.

It was my first teaching job ever...and my first time in Russia. It was, rather stupidly, a summer camp and after a series of mishaps I was dragged out there on the night of my arrival with no orientation or anything.

The nearest shop/train station was about 45 minutes walk away. The nearest major town was over 2 hours train-ride away. I was isolated (the other teacher was a Russian), with no support...

And even better...a photocopier that only occasionally worked (and we had to get paper for it ourselves...ie at weekends), only one serviceable classroom (I generally taught my students outside in the forest), no board markers...and only Reward Supplimentary materials for "coursebooks" (which flopped when the copier wasn't working anyway).

To say that it was 6 weeks of chaotic, strenuous, stressful hell would be putting it mildly. The fact that I stayed in the country and continue to teach English is a minor miracle

[steven_gerrard]

***************** (edited)

An excellent salary, great conditions and benefits and purpose built classrooms. AND all the students are the same level- the correct level at that.

[canucktechie]

Am I the only one who noticed that Confederate's posting contained a lot of grammatical and spelling errors? Physician, heal thyself.

[zaneth]

Nah, he just writes a lot, and types fast apparently. Perhaps a bit verbose at times, but that's what this place is for. Don't cramp his style. He's being honest about himself and isn't attacking anybody. I like his perspective.

[bobs12]

Did anyone else wonder what was going on in steven_gerrard's post?

I loved Alekto's account of teaching in the forest. I used to do camps in Finland that weren't much better organised, but never had as much fun as she did.

[Confederate]

You're right, I do make a lot of spelling and grammar errors, mainly because I only get on the Internet around 1:00 am every morning after a long day. I do rush and try to get what I need done and get to bed. I guess I am not so lucky as others, having to work at three schools at one time, plus other jobs on weekends, but I can not complain. By the way, I do have a six year university degree and 20 plus years teaching experience, so my mistakes do make me look foolish, especially after I see them. I am a published author, written a satirical book about a former government worker fed up with politics and resorts to using dirty tricks against politically correct politicians. I have also written several magazine articles, including three about living and working here in Russia.

But you are right, most of my mistakes are inexcusable, especially for a university degree and published author. Just goes to show we all make mistakes, even stupid ones sometimes. I wish I could say that I never made a mistake in class, but I can not, but the mistakes I have made have been few and far between.
Georgia Confederate

[bobs12]

Don't worry, I don't think it was an attack. I hope. It's actually darn difficult typing in a small text box without slipping up- even with grammar. It's a bit like writing an a really narrow board. How many of us have written something on the board, taken a step back, and found missing letters, missing words...

Now there's a thought- can you really say 'find missing letters'? Kind of gives the impression they turned up in your pocket.

Confederate- is any of your work on the 'net? Could you pm me some links?

[Confederate]

I appreciate the fact that most teachers here on Dave�s forum know what it is like teaching here in Russia. Long hours to make good pay is a part of freelancing, my day usually starts at 5:00 am and if I am lucky I will be home by 10.00 pm, then spend three or four hours getting ready for the next day classes. Sometimes when a person teaches freelance, they have to run around most of the day, especially when they work at several places such as I do. At the end of a day sometimes the last thing you are concerned with is spelling or grammar in a post and typos are common at least for me.

I have written a couple of articles for, �Escape From America� magazine. I just sent in another article for the Nov. issue and I mentioned an article I saw on your web page Bobs12. This is what I said, �Robert Leitch has written a very good article on ESL teaching here in Russia called, �Damning Myths� you can read it, I agree whole hearty with what he says in the article. These big franchise schools are businesses, not schools, that is a fact. http://www.visarus.co.uk/community/index.php?command=view_article&id=27� This should be on their web page when they update their next issue. http://www.escapeartist.com/efan/efan.htm

My latest article, I kind of said that those interested in coming here to teach, better be prepared to put in some long hours and hard work, that teaching is not easy and is no vacation. The first two articles I wrote, I kind of glossed over that fact, but this time I did not. It is titled, �The Good and Bad Sides of Living and Working in Russia.� And yes, my writing does have a few errors, if I were to tern it in as a term paper in college I would have gotten a B on it. My first two articles only delt with the good things and good side of ESL teaching here. I am far from being the perfect writer, just something I like doing when I can find a little free time. I was taught in Creative Writing in college, that good writing as a few grammar errors so that it looks like a real person wrote it, so you will find just a few grammar errors and no misspellings. OK?

By the way Bobs12, your web page looks real good, I liked the articles on it and the forum looks to be set up very good. I think once the word gets around about it, more people will start posting to the forum before long.

Georgia Confederate

[bobs12]

Interesting idea that writing shouldn't be 'perfect'. I reckon a lot of atmoshpere can be created by manipulating or breaking rules, especially with a good reader...

Confederate, thanks for that! I'm glad you liked the article. I love writing too, only I haven't done it for years. Now, because of the site, I'm just starting again. It's great to know that somebody enjoyed reading that. I didn't realise people were already browsing the site- better be more careful what I put on it from now on! I really think though that it's the 'myths' and the schools' marketing nonsense (I didn't mention that for fear of reprisals) that are setting up false expectations about teaching and learning in general, and buggering our business.

Also glad you like the site, I hope it'll become useful. I think it'll be a long time before it really picks up the pace, but fingers crossed. I'll be really pleased if it works.

Hear what you say about long hours. I think a lot of the tourist teachers run home in winter when they realise it's not a holiday. If I'd had any ense, I'd have done the same. Ah well, too late now!

[waxwing]

bobs, I sent you a pm but I just wanted to say that the site is a pretty good idea. I don't know about the visa side of things, but a place which manages to attract the interest of both students and teachers would be particularly good. <= Bilingual надо, к сожалению ...
Seems to me that there's expat.ru for the business types (a few teachers go there), eslcafe winning hands down for pure teacherly conversation, and for the Russian students I think maybe efl.ru is pretty popular, and one or two others I've forgotten. I saw at least one site in Russian that tried to create a marketplace for teachers advertising their services, I think that's a good niche, but that was entirely in Russian, of course everything needs to be bilingual ideally. The other thing of course is that everything is very 'Muscocentric' if I may coin a word.

[waxwing]

[bobs12]

The 'visa' in the name came from an earlier travel business and visa invitation service. Lost interest in it, but kept the domain name as it was registered on just about all other domain endings (.com, .ru, .net, etc.)

Yeah, there are some similar sites, but I don't think they're quite made for what I have in mind Sound sinister?