Job Discussion Forums

[matsgone]

Hi,

I am planing to go to Russia for at least 3 months from January-February. The purpose of my trip is to study the Russian language...( I know, 3 months is not enough.....better than nothing though....)

Where would be a nice quiet town to do so and does anybody know about a good school?

Thanx a lot!

Mathieu
Canadian

[rusmeister]

There are lots of (relatively) quiet towns in the Moscow region within striking distance of Moscow itself. I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult, with just a little bit of looking, to find teachers willing to give private lessons for some good cash (expect to pay $10-20/hr these days), and with a little luck, they may really have had experience teaching foreigners in Moscow. This is certainly true where I live.

There have been a few posts on the forum on the Pushkin Language Institute in Moscow - once the most prestigious school of Russian - but the reports didn't sound so good.

Since you need an invitation and an official basis for living where you're going to live, I'm not sure how you would just pick a quiet town and go live there. I am married to a Russian, so have a pretty good basis. Are you familiar with the requirements for obtaining a visa? (Readily available in English on Russian embassy/consulate websites in English-speaking countries)

[expatella_girl]

I don't know much about it personally but in Tver, one of the Golden Ring cities outside of Moscow, there is a well know Russian language "immersion" program. I don't think its actually a school, it's a program of living in a Russian household, speaking only Russian, combined with classroom time.

If you're interested I could get more information for you.

[Millerlong]

Yep, don't even bother with the Pushkin Institute of Russian Language. I started classes there again this semester and I now refuse to go back. Total waste of money (if I had paid it would have been -- but I didn't ) Problems are as follows:

1.) Too many students despite having a max 8 advertised when you hand your money over -- my class had 18 students.

2.) Teachers come 15-20 minutes late to class.

3.) During the first week do not be surprised if your teacher does not turn up at all.

4.) Teacher will print only a handful of exercise handouts and make the rest of the people share. Why not just print out 18 of them since that is how many students there are? Teacher didn't like this question.

5.) Lights make a loud continuous buzzing sound when you turn them on.

6.) Toilets are all broken -- I can only speak for the men's toilets.

7.) Canteen food is expensive and foul.

8.) Some teachers don't actually teach during class. They will give you exercises which allows them to sit and play with their phones. For example, the teacher asked us to "draw the street of your dreams". 45 mins later she comes back and then criticises my dream street. The next lesson she shoved us in the TV room and made us watch a 1970s cartoon on VHS.

Many more complaints about this place but this is enough for now. Education is a service industry over here and like all services in Russia it needs a lot of improvement. Don't waste your time at these kinds of institutions, get a private tutor for max 10 USD per 60 mins. Good luck.