"How Can You Teach When You Don't Speak The Same Language"

I get the question all the time (before and even after I've gotten to St. Petersburg) "How can you teach the kids if they don't speak the same language as you?" My answer is this: "Very carefully." Teaching someone you have no common language with is so extremely difficult. Teaching is much harder than I ever anticipated it being. I figured I'd just come here and speak English and everything would be great, and while there's some truth to that, it's a bit more difficult than just doing that.

We have to plan lessons, we have to be able to talk for the entire time we're teaching and keep the kids engaged, even though they don't know exactly what we're saying. It's a difficult task, we also have to keep them from misbehaving and not speaking in Russian all while only speaking English - a language they do not know. Lesson planning was difficult, having enough things to talk about for the entire class rotation was difficult, talking and being interesting enough to these kids even though they have blank stares because they have no idea what you're saying is difficult.

Victoria drawing with the kids

At first this was a super daunting task, now it's become pretty easy, perhaps it's because we've gotten to know the kids better or perhaps it's because we're actually somewhat successful in our English teaching abilities. All I know is I think I could be considered a charade master. It's an amazing feeling when the kids want so badly to be able to communicate with you that they try super hard to act it out and you figure it out and can give them the words for them to be able to express themselves.

Kelsey with some of the kids

Half the time these kids still don't understand what I'm saying, and almost all of the time I have no idea what they're saying. (Except you Gleeb - I heard you cheer after you asked the Russian teacher if you had to go to English class and she told you no). 

Before I set out for St. Petersburg, Russia to teach I was told that I'd end up loving each one of the kids, even the naughty ones. I've had times while I've been here that I've blatantly said those people are liars, I will never like those kids. As I've been getting closer to leaving all of these kids though, I realized while I may not love each and every one of them, I've grown fond of all of them - yes, even the naughty ones.

I've loved my time here in Russia, and teaching English to kids who don't know English has been extremely difficult and trying (as you can imagine), but it's taught me a lot of patience and I really am going to miss all of these crazy Russian kids when I go home.