Saul – Russia
Time to start I suppose. The week is beginning in earnest and it’s that time of year when there never seems to be a quiet moment. You can go into school with nothing in particular planned aside from the day’s usual duties (planning, testing new students, cleaning up after messy teachers), when suddenly ten people run up to you with ten different jobs for you that really cannot wait and before you know it you’re left with just five minutes to take a cursory glance at your materials before heading into class. Anyway, this week I’m going to make sure I keep on top of things by planning Monday’s lessons on Sunday. ‘Pre-empting’, as they called it on my training course; just a pity I’m not very good at it.
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Anyway, my name’s Saul and I’m DoS at Language Link in St. Petersburg. This is my fourth year in Russia altogether, but my third year at this school. My first time out here was seven years ago when, as a student, I met the wonderful woman who is now my wife and got my first taste of EFL teaching. Things were pretty different then; it was enough just to be able to speak English if you wanted an EFL job and there was no real quality control, but I’ll go into more of that a bit later on. Fortunately things have changed a lot and for the better.
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As I write on this cloudy St. Petersburg evening I’m past one of my biggest challenges of the week and awaiting the other one. The one behind me was an open lesson, a free demonstration session open to anyone planning to study with us. It wasn’t until after this open lesson was well underway that I realised that it was to be one of my biggest challenges of the week. It was a children’s open lesson and I’d prepared some games for kids. What I didn’t realise was that all the children’s parents had been invited to attend, as well as some local Russian teachers of English. I’m DoS, and I can’t refuse such people to watch my ‘master class’. I was glad when the lesson was over; I have to think back to my early days of teaching those seven years ago to remember the last time my hands were visibly shaking during a class.
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The other big challenge of the week is the class that’s started to go wrong. You’re no doubt familiar with my tale; what was once my favourite group has suddenly been turned on its head by the addition of one new student, who has in record time managed to make enemies with another student. The age gap is perhaps the biggest problem – the new student is, I guess, in her forties whilst the rest of the group, including her nemesis, are all teenagers or in their twenties. It also doesn’t help that this older student is by far the weakest in the group. Anyway, the older woman’s constant protests and rude comments are beginning to get on my nerves, and I can see that something is going to have to be done this week. I need to save things before I begin to dread Tuesday evenings for no other reason than two adults who don’t get on but should know better. There is, of course, another adult here who should know better; I should know better how to deal with the problem.
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Ellie Saavedra Ryan