From Tolkien to Teaching: My Journey to Becoming an English Teacher

I remember myself as a 12-year-old girl, telling my parents that I want to become an English teacher. This crucial decision was made spontaneously – my English classes at school were always tedious and similar to one another, but I was somehow confident that a language can be taught in a different, more motivating way. This idea came to me after I finished reading The Lord of the Rings. I cannot understand now how my adolescent brain connected language teaching and the fantasy novel, but I am still thankful it did.

My parents, both engineers, must have been confused upon hearing such an announcement, but they did everything they could so that I would be able to receive a degree in teaching.

My entire family moved to Saint Petersburg from my native town Baikonur, where my parents had been living for over 20 years. I believe this was a turning point in my life. I enrolled at the Herzen State Pedagogical University, and after my first school practicum, I grew absolutely confident I had found my vocation.

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Having worked in education for almost 5 years now, I have developed a strong belief that a person should never stop learning. There are various ways for teachers to better their professional skills such as face-to-face workshops, online courses and teachers’ communities on social networking sites that offer the latest trends in ESL.

However, it is much harder to improve your language skills while living in a country where this language is not commonly spoken. Thus, the main reason I am applying for the Fulbright FLTA program is to upgrade my English language knowledge.

Since my long-term career goal is to teach English to university students whose major is the English language, I need to be proficient in English myself. As an ESL teacher, my responsibility is not only to help my students acquire the necessary language skills, but also to provide them with the tools for adequate intercultural interaction when the need arises. Russians often have a one-sided view of the American reality that is formed based on blockbusters, Youtube videos, and popular music.

However, it would be logical to assume that those are only bits and pieces of what American culture really is. Having never experienced living in an English-speaking country for an extended period myself, I can only base my conclusion upon the same things as my students, which would be biased. Just like that French teacher in the movie The Jane Austin Book Club said, ‘What kind of French teacher am I, if I have never been to Paris?’ Experiencing living in the U.S. will allow me to form my own first-hand, candid opinion. To my mind, teaching requires a certain degree of creativity. I have always tried to offer unconventional tasks and come up with engaging activities to raise my students’ motivation.

I am familiar with different teaching approaches and I have learnt to combine them in a way that best suits my students’ needs. I have experience teaching young learners, teenagers and adults and I am sure I can adapt my teaching techniques to the immediate needs of any given group. Throughout my career, I have faced many challenges and have worked in various environments, ranging from technologically advanced schools to very basic ones. Although teaching might seem to be an independent job, it involves cooperation and willingness to help out your colleagues, which I frequently do without hesitation. All in all, should I be selected, both my future American students and students back in Russia would greatly benefit from my newly-acquired experience. I also believe I could be an invaluable asset and a generous contributor to this program since I have a lot to share both professionally and personally.