Читать книгу The English Teachers - RF Duncan-Goodwillie - Страница 33

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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