Читать книгу The English Teachers - RF Duncan-Goodwillie - Страница 32

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 and where you work now?

DS: It’s huge. At university the atmosphere was completely different. We were expected to learn lots of things by heart, to work with texts and retell them. I don’t remember many free discussions. We didn’t even do much listening which was outrageous because when I started 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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