Don't get me wrong, I love what I do. And what I do is translate, interpret and use English in my everyday life to write, sing and communicate. But the place that's supposed to teach me how to do this properly is doing such a lousy job that I can no longer be quiet. So, here goes.
I'm not going to name names here, but my linguistic university is considered to be one of the best in Russia. That might not mean a lot to you if you live in another country, but look at the map of the world. Find Russia. Wasn't too hard, was it? It's massive! It's got a lot of gifted people who are entitled to great education, just like anyone else. But what do they get instead? Let me tell you.
I'm not going to name names here, but my linguistic university is considered to be one of the best in Russia. That might not mean a lot to you if you live in another country, but look at the map of the world. Find Russia. Wasn't too hard, was it? It's massive! It's got a lot of gifted people who are entitled to great education, just like anyone else. But what do they get instead? Let me tell you.
- We study using books that were issued in the 60-s. I am not kidding. And that's how they teach us Contemporary English.
- We do not have free access to listening or viewing materials, the only way to get to all that is through a teacher, and they are not interested in helping us.
- The teachers are actually not interested in teaching us. Paradox? Not really, would you be interested in doing anything, if your salary was less than $200 a week?
- The dean's office abuses students as well as professors, and treats both groups as if without them, the university would still exist.
- There are no. And I mean, NO internships in England, USA, Australia, or New Zealand. Which means, any of the English-speaking countries. But, of course, the university covers 100% of the cost of China, Saudi Arabia and India internships. Sure, Hindi is more popular than English.
- We don't speak English in class. Again, I'm serious. We do all sorts of things - we translate, we interpret, we retell things we have learned by heart - another useless activity, to my mind - but we do not speak. There are no discussions of the simplest things: what we like to do in our spare time, what we like to eat, where do we like to hang out. I'm one of the lucky ones, since I get to practice outside of the university, but my group-mates don't, and it shows.
It's obvious that the situation is pretty grave. I don't know if there is much of a future for this kind of education. And us, for that matter, since we're going to graduate out of it.
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