English Language Center

Argh! Last night I had spent about 20 minutes banging out another entry when my browser crashed. I suppose I deserved it. After all, I advocate typing things of any importance into some other text editor and then pasting them into a web browser. Oh well, even the mighty Safari has its quirks I suppose (although that isn't what caused my crash). I'll be retyping that entry later today.

On to the main course: my job. For those of you who don't already know, I will be teaching English. As a matter of fact, next Monday I'll be flying to Kaliningrad onboard Aeroflot flight 767. When I arrive I'll have about a week before classes begin to acclimate and figure out at least the first class (gotta stay one lesson ahead of the class). Is the reason I decided to come to Russia because I had a burning desire to teach the English language? Certainly not. I came because I wanted to learn Russian, among other things. Teaching English seemed like a good way to accomplish this. Jeff Scoggins, a friend from church, had been working in Moscow for several years, so in March of 2003 I shot him an email. He helped connect me with the directors of the English program sponsored through the Adventist church.

Currently there are five English Language Centers, located throughout the CIS in Almaty, Kaliningrad, Kiev, Moscow, and Nizhny Novgorod. (Presently the website for the place I'm headed appears to be down; you may try google's cache) After talking with people that had worked in each location, I decided to give Kaliningrad a whirl. The main factor that influenced my decision was climate and availability of English speakers. Cold weather is my cup of tea. And even though Kaliningrad is coastal, it is roughly the same latitude as Akutan, AK so I should be nice and chilly. I was afraid that if I stayed in Moscow the urge would be too great to hang out with my English speaking cronies. At the risk of over-simplifying the method, the ELCs appear to operate on a bait and hook method. Many people want/need to speak English so this service is provided - the bait. Extra practice sessions, which are fairly undisguised religious services, occur twice a week - the hook.

Now, communication with the people in Moscow who organized my paperwork hasn't been super by any means but it has been fairly regular. If I went only on my experience communicating with Kaliningrad, I'd say that email takes 5 weeks to reach there, if it ever arrives at all. So even now I'm not totally sure what to expect. Oh, of the five ELCs, only one is a good solid school - the one in Almaty. This probably explains why they were so eager to have me come. The assistant director kept up a lively email dialogue with me for perhaps two weeks during which I found out most of what I knew prior to arriving. What else do I know now? For starters there appears to be somewhat of a rift between the director of the ELC in Kaliningrad and the local church. This raises some questions for me about the logistics of the hook and bait. Also within the next two months, a person from Moscow will be paying my future school a visit to 'checkup' on everything. Needless to say, I'm sure my experiences as an English teacher will be exciting if nothing else.