For both the teachers and students it would be helpful, in my view, to change teachers for 2-3 session a week. We would hear different voices, and teachers would have relief from difficult students. I don’t think that using only Russian for students, who know almost nothing of the language, is the best way to teach. We changed to part English-part Russian after a few days and made much more progress, “Modern” teaching methods aren’t necesserily the best. Ivan Sheiko: A good, concientious and hard-working teacher. We made good progress in our second 2 weeks. He went out of his way to provide extra material, typing much of it at home in his own time.
He has a particularly good knowledge of the nuannnces of Russian and ita etymology. He may prefer to teach more educated students than us with his skills. I feel we got on very well together however. He has a delightful sense of humour!
It is useful to have a tangible sense of progression and a final goal in any study.
Hostfamily: Olga provided a very clean and tidy house with great food, and relationship was excellent. Olga went out of her way to talk to us in Russian and was always helpful. Strongly recommended. The children were also helpful and very courteous.
E-mail: emsey/at/wick.ndo.co.uk
