Getting a job as an English teacher in Ukraine is as easy as showing up. Of course, so-called native speakers are highly in demand, which you can see by the large number of language centers in Kyiv offering courses with real, flesh-and-blood Americans, Canadians, and Brits. Of course Ukrainians study more than just English, and several of my students are also engaged in studying French, Italian, Japanese, and German, among others. People always laugh when
I ask them if they are studying Chinese, as if it were an impossible task. I know from living in Beijing for two years that Chinese is actually quite easy, and is far easier than Russian!
My first teaching job in Kyiv, and indeed in my life, was as a part-time tutor with one of the more well-known language centers.
I sent my C.V. by email, and soon made arrangements for an interview. I had to be honest, and told them that I didn't really know English grammar all that well, that I had no formal teaching training, and that my only credential was a bachelor's degree in Philosophy. This seemed o.k. with them, as the important thing was that I spoke English clearly and was able to agree to a commitment of six months. It is a huge problem for teaching schools to see their native speakers come and go with the tides, and sometimes they are forced to take people on for short terms just to cover their increasing demand. At the time, they believed I looked the part of an English teacher.
So I went about making small appointments, sometimes only 45 minutes in length, trying to begin my career as a tutor and teacher. I prepared lessons for small groups of Ukrainian youngsters, who I met with once or twice a week.
I took on three Korean students, whose parents worked for a big multinational electronics firm. I had all the dilemmas you can imagine of a new teacher: trouble motivating stubborn or lazy students, or explaining a difficult expression or grammar rule. Everything was going pretty well, I guess, until I realized I was being exploited.
Now this might seem like a strong word, but I came to learn that my school was taking between 20 and 50 percent of the money students and their parents paid, and I was left with as little as 7 USD an hour.
At first I thought this was reasonable, since I didn't have any teacher training and I know that Ukrainian teachers can earn much less than that - and for much more work. But when I considered the amount of time it took to run around Kyiv to make these appointments, and the stress involved in a daily commute by bus and metro, I knew that I had to look for a better situation.
Many thoughts have gone through my mind since then about how to make an honest living - some of which I'm sure you've considered yourself. Starting a cafe, a marriage agency, a translation firm, a youth hostel, a fundraising consultancy, a firm engaged in the import of strange and wonderful goods. Yet all of these ideas are for people who have money to invest, and aren't for people like me - those with no background in business and finance.
So I sought work as a proofreader, a writer, and an editor with various English-language publications in Kyiv. Either they were too boring, too technical, too far, or too uninterested in me for it to work out. I did manage to make a little pocket money writing a few articles, but hardly more than that.
A good friend of mine, who is a writer and a journalist, left Kyiv for greener fields in Moscow, after not being able to find a professional gig in Ukraine.
The major news bureaus of BBC, AP, and Reuters, all have a small, select group of correspondents in the region, and writing for them would take some serious credentials and experience. Even the major English weekly newspaper in Kyiv turned down my resume, more than once, for reasons unknown.
After hearing how demanding and time-consuming a job in publishing is, I decided it was for the best.
Feeling a bit of despair, I turned back to the idea of teaching, but resolved to get a better job than the one I had. I interviewed with a very professional-looking school near Independence Square, where the salaries reach as high as 1,200 USD per month. This was more than I needed to earn, and the hours (2 in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, and 2 in the evening) were impossible since I would have had to spend all day in the center of Kiev, because I live in the suburbs.
But soon after that, I discovered the wonderful niche of American English language schools. I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me before! After another interview, I started teaching full-time at one of the few schools offering a focus in my native tongue.
The American vernacular language is strange and wonderful. To me, it is the language of cool, new poetry and jazz, and of hip-hop. It is the combination of 500 years of mixing dialects and languages of waves of immigrants into a swirling linguistic body. It was the new language of slaves, Native Americans, the English aristocracy, the French traders, or voyageurs, the large numbers of 20th century immigrants of every other possible creed and class.
American English is often more prone to flexibility and improper use than its British cousin. To many, it often doesn't make sense. Our dictionaries are not as esteemed as the Oxford and Cambridge ones, and our poets and authors are sometimes considered second-class to the likes of Chaucer, Dickens, and Shakespeare (who, indeed, has much to do with the language we all speak today). My literary heroes of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg were generally opposed to formal writing rules, and among others they have inspired a vibrant American language of free-verse and slang. This is hard to teach in class, however.
In practical terms, American English is spoken natively by more people than British English - about 70% of native speakers of English are Americans, four times number of British native English speakers. Also, American English is ubiquitous in entertainment, science, commerce, technology and diplomacy.
British English is hardly unimportant if you consider the numbers of people who speak English as a second language (in India, Malaysia, South Africa, etc.) and as a foreign language, such as in Ukraine. This number could reach as many as 1 billion speakers, worldwide.
Ukrainians will find American English more and more useful in the future as American companies further their presence here, and as American teachers continue to multiply. Over half of the U.S. Peace Corps volunteers in Ukraine, for example, are here teaching English. But I really don't think it matters whether someone learns British or American English - it just might be easier to stick with one to keep all the prepositions and idioms in order. English is an international language, and I have the opinion that there is no one right way of speaking it.
It has been one of my greatest pleasures working as an English teacher, and getting to exchange so many views, anecdotes, and idioms with dozens of excellent students. It has been a learning experience for me, as well as them, in understanding the value of hard work and what it takes to succeed in the new business environment. I am convinced that anyone who takes the time to study English will find a use for it in the future. However, I am just as convinced that English teachers ought to learn Russian and Ukrainian to get the most out of living in Ukraine.
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