GONE are the days when almost anyone who spoke English fluently could walk into a school and get hired as an English teacher in Russia.
When Peter, from New Zealand, arrived in Moscow, he was "brimming with excitement" at the idea of starting as an English teacher. Before he left his homeland, a language school had promised him a full-time job, full visa support and a place to live.
"Needless to say, I was more than a little disappointed to be informed on arrival that the school presently had no work for me, the visa I was given was for a student, and I was handed a copy of the newspaper Iz Ruk v Ruki to search for an apartment," he said.
Many Moscow-based expatriate English teachers ?who like Peter are unwilling to tell their surnames and place of employment ?said most schools were unable or reluctant to guarantee the high salaries and long-term career opportunities that serious teachers would expect to receive. And, as Peter found, it is difficult to know which schools to trust when being recruited from abroad.
These days in Russia there is no shortage of English-speaking expatriates who could be tapped to fill English language teaching positions.
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the schools to attract native speakers with extensive work experience in the field, although that is what clients are now demanding.
Both individual students and corporate clients have been complaining about a lack of professionalism and experience among untrained foreign-language teachers. They now demand higher standards from schools.
As a result, all schools now demand qualifications of some kind, such as a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) or TESOL (Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages) certificate.
Yelena Lubimova, senior student coordinator at Lingua, a school of English language in Moscow, said her company demanded a minimum of one year's experience "to ensure professionalism."
"I walked into a job without being asked for any particular qualifications, but that won't happen these days," said James, a Moscow-based English teacher with ten years' experience.
