Школа английского языка в Пушкино | Наши ученики, друзья, коллеги NEW | I would not like to criticize anything or anyone. I just would like to share my thoughts with colleagues. Here are my thoughts:

Victoriya Ivanova, Teacher of English, Moscow.

I would not like to criticize anything or anyone. I just would like to share my thoughts with colleagues. Here are my thoughts:

1. We want to make our “students’ life” easier and more efficient but we really make it more difficult and less productive. Education can not be separated from social environment but I would not like to stop at political or economical aspects here.
2. We still feel strong influence from the past when Teaching Methods of a foreign language meant reading some texts (knowing grammar) but not listening and speaking. We still pay a lot of attention to transcription but use audio materials little. Teaching transcription, when we want our students to pronounce properly, means adding more special signs to learning. That is quite confusing especially for students at a primary school. They should learn Latin and Cyrillic prints and a print of a transcription. Personal experience shows that the more students listen and speak the fewer mistakes they make in pronunciation (or even do not make any mistakes at all).
3. Motivation is an engine of progress. You can add more colors to your teaching (studying) using communication through internet (emails, ICQs, forums) through live discussion with native speakers. But some teachers prevent students from such an opportunity. We study grammar but our students’ vocabulary is poor and their communication skills are limited as well. Do we teach “dead” language?
4. Everything at school is strictly regulated. It is not an order yet but a tip to use textbooks adopted by Russian agency of education. I can see here more commercial side than political interest but it is still a limitation of teacher’s choice. There are quite a lot of experienced methodologists in Russia. On the other hand, we sometimes meet poor text books by native speakers on our market. However, I prefer books by foreign authors for their openness, more close life approach, slower speed in brining new materials, colorfulness, directions to international tests (Cambridge exams, TOEFL, etc.).
5. We should not deceive ourselves that every student can be taught a foreign language. It sounds trivial but we need broad-minded students with high IQ (especially talking about high school). But we do not have clear regulations allowing students to select subjects (Russian equivalents of A-levels) concentrating their efforts on three or four courses at a high school (now they have 15 to 20 subjects and 5 to 6 final exams). And we do not have а strict criteria for entering so called A-levels. Unfortunately, Russian standard EGE (unified state exam), which is very close to international requirements, does not work properly. If we can not standardize education in Russia that means we can not fit it into European (world) format of education.
6. A teacher is a psychologist trained in a specific area of teaching. You are a psychologist first because you work with children / adults (living creatures) and only then you are a teacher using special tools (textbooks, CDs, audio books, etc.) and your qualification. You have to feel students’ auras and apply tools depending on their characters and abilities.
7. I would appreciate to hear your opinions on this subject. Please, contact me through this website www.english-school.narod.ru
Sincerely yours,
Victoriya Ivanova,
Teacher of English, Moscow