RF Duncan-Goodwillie - The English Teachers

The background to this is my family is a travelling family. My brothers travel a lot and my sister lives in Sweden. I hadn’t travelled a lot until that time, so I kind of had a bit of chip on my shoulder about it. I’m not a traveller – even now.

Anyway, I saw the website and one of the countries was Moldova. At the time no-one else in my family had gone there and no-one else could beat me on that one, so I applied for volunteer teaching there. It was a two-month contract which seemed like a long time to be away. It was a massive leap. I’d only been in a plane about four times before that and then to go somewhere that no-one else had and not know what was at the other end of it.

RFDG: Wasn’t that a bit terrifying?

EC: It was. I remember lying in bed at night thinking, “What have I done!?” But it shows how desperate I was for change. So, I did it. I went to the capital. They call it the white city. I was stationed in a Russian school and staying with a Russian family, so I got the Russian angle on everything. Through them I understood that Moldovan Russians are not happy that the Soviet Union collapsed and they feel they have been left high and dry. They feel Russian. They are kind of miserable people and they respond by trying to be more Russian than Russians.

RFDG: How does that manifest itself?

EC: By being very touchy. For example, I wanted to give a talk about the poet John Osborne, which I did in the end. But it mentioned the invasion of Hungary and they said I couldn’t say that because Russia didn’t invade Hungary, it was invited by the Hungarians. There were all kinds of things you could and couldn’t say. Much more than in Russia.

So, I was introduced to Russian culture that way. I was quite amazed because I didn’t think it was possible to live abroad. I didn’t realise it was something I could do. It was a test of whether I could do it and I concluded that I could, much to my own surprise. I was kind of intrigued by Russia. The alphabet is completely different, the language is too, but on the other hand it’s not as different as Japanese or Chinese. It’s different but the same at the same time and that intrigued me.

I had an epiphany when I was sitting and waiting to teach in one of the rooms. They gave me this soup and I was eating it and looking across at the Russian alphabet poster on the wall and figuring it out. It was pretty much the same order of letters and I was enjoying the soup and I thought I could cope with it.

Anyway, I finished in Moldova and went back to Britain skint, but with lots of stories and quite buoyed up by the whole thing. To cut a long story short, I did a summer school and met a guy there who was like a mentor. He was teaching in Italy. Prior to this I didn’t know the TEFL industry existed. I knew there were people teaching in China, but I didn’t realise this whole big thing existed.

He introduced me to the idea that you could take a TEFL certificate and work abroad. He was kind of my model that this was possible. So I did my CELTA with Saxon Court in London and I looked about the job market and saw an advert for jobs in the Ukraine. I was thinking about Eastern Europe after Moldova and I applied for that and got an email asking me to come for an interview which was in Norfolk for some reason.

I went and the gentleman was very eccentric. It turned out he was a head-hunter and wasn’t offering a particular job. He said there was a post in West Siberia and he helped me through the application process. I got the job and in 2007 I went to this oil town in West Siberia and taught there for a year and a half. It was a good introduction to Russian Russia. There was no expat community. There were no concessions to anything Western or European.

Then I went back to Britain for a while, but there weren’t many jobs so I went for a job in Kazan for four years at a small school before moving on to where I am now.

RFDG: I know Moscow wasn’t your first choice, but what drew you here?

EC: I just wanted to work in Russia. I applied to St Petersburg, too. I actually didn’t really want to work in Moscow, but I’ve since come to like it here. I used to think it was too big and probably too expensive. Maybe too Westernised as well. But I’ve come to like it more. Kazan is my favourite city, but there’s more going on in Moscow.

RFDG: Why did you decide to go into teaching in the first place?

EC: My dad is an Art lecturer. It’s kind of in the blood since my mum is a primary school teacher – and a nurse as well – and I had an interest in my actual subject which is English literature. I was interested in conveying that. I never saw myself as an ordinary teacher. My original idea was to work in adult education or as a lecturer, but then you take what work there is and follow from there.

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Setting the scene: The room we’re sitting in is part of a franchise’s teacher training department and is far too big for the slight figures of Lena and myself. We’ve both had our afternoon coffee and it’s obvious from the rapid-fire way we speak to each other. Lena confesses she sometimes worries about her English and hopes she will be comprehensible. Her mock nervousness and thoughtfulness as she speaks lets me know this will not be a problem at all.

EA: I grew up here in Moscow. My mom is also a teacher, but she’s a German teacher. I’ve always wanted to do something connected to languages. My school years were really, really good. I loved school. I was not – definitely not – a star pupil, but I still loved it. I spent most of my time reading.

After school I went to the People’s Friendship University of Russia. I did my BA in Philology and my paper was on the peculiarities of the translation from English to Russian in terms of fiction books. Then my family insisted on me doing my Masters. I really didn’t want to, mainly because I’d had enough at that point. I really wanted to start working and earning money. Then after some time, I did want to do my Masters, but I went to a different field.

I studied Arts and Humanities. I loved it, mostly because I love education and I love knowledge, especially if it’s free and I don’t have to pay for it. But at the same time, it was quite difficult because I wanted to start working. So I did. I worked for a couple of magazines. I worked for the Russian edition of Glamour magazine and for Fashion Collection, but I didn’t really like it. It was quite boring, to tell the truth. I mean, probably for somebody it would be the goal of their life, but it wasn’t for me. So, I decided to do something else and I came to BKC and worked as an administrator for a year.

Then I did my CELTA and I loved it so much that I haven’t been able to stop teaching ever since.

RFDG: I know you said you always wanted to be a teacher, but what do you think are the reasons?

EA: Well, my mom is a teacher and she loves her profession so much. She’s a university teacher and she’s always said that it’s the best profession you can possibly have because you don’t have to sit in an office. You get to work with people. I like that and I think she feels the same as I do, that our profession is really, really rewarding, because not only do you get to learn about people, you get to make friendships and acquaintances. It’s also very rewarding in terms of making people’s lives better. The other part of my family wanted me to go into medicine, but I don’t think it’s for me. I still love knowing that I’m actually doing something to make people’s lives better. So, I think that was the main reason.