The house I grew up in. Cotton candy used to be hard to obtain, we had to go downtown for it. Now it is sold in the local park, but it is aggressively blue. I miss the fresh spun, hard-to-get, white cotton candy!
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
I am originally from Russia: born in Saratov on the Volga river, schooled in St Petersburg known as Russia’s “cultural capital”. In college, I studied sociology and cultural anthropology, with a special interest in gendered language and discourse. After my graduation in 2019, I was recruited to support the Russian program at a small university in middle Tennessee, which is how I immigrated and got into teaching Russian. I’d wanted to continue my education but would only be satisfied with just the right fit, so I took my time until I found the UO. So, in 2023, I made another big move Westward from Boston where I managed an ESL school and poured beer for a living. Though my heart aches for the respite for the Atlantic whose horizon is faintly reminiscent of my dear Eurasia, I am having a personal and professional blast here in the PNW.
You found out about LTS after you were already enrolled in the MA program in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. What inspired you to do concurrent MA degrees in both programs? How do they complement one another for you?
I just acted like a typical Gemini, honestly: I can’t resist the impulsive allure of “why not los dos”. Actually, I did my research before coming here, so I knew about the existence of LTS and planned to take classes in the program since REEES has room for electives. My hot take is that all language GEs should take at least a course or two in the program. My first term, I took Second Language Acquisition with Prof. Sykes and realized just how inspired and invested I was in class. So I thought, I wonder if I can spot two birds with one set of binoculars (pardon by birdwatcher idiomatic edits) and get a BOGO deal on my degrees? Turned out I could, and after a lot of productive and encouraging communication with both programs, I was officially on my concurrent tracks! I will say, it is challenging, which all faculty were transparent about, but they also had so much faith in me and were clearly happy to support me. Initially I thought, if it’s too much, I can always backtrack, but now I know I wouldn’t have it any other way. I do not feel torn: on the contrary, both programs form one whole experience that feels uniquely me.
What do you find rewarding about language teaching, or teaching in general?
Birding the Altantic Coast, Martha’s Vineyard
Teaching is a very creative process. There is no one right way to teach a specific language skillset, and getting to invent a learning experience for people is very cool. I love how collaborative it is: teaching can’t be self-righteous or pretentious, can’t be a genius research-based masterpiece of a plan without involving the learners and being centered on them. I think I am a creative and empathetic person, so these aspects on teaching are especially appealing to me.
When I started teaching Russian in the US, I first felt like a cheat: teaching my own language that I know so well, like I couldn’t learn something brand new. I felt like anybody could do it well. It was silly, of course. I quickly realized that teaching has so must mastery, variety, and depth to it, and it is always evolving, always responding to the new needs and changing trends. I love how language teaching brings together the different fields: cognitive science, psychology, sociology, computer science, literature… Research that I’ve been exposed to is very diverse, but still, for people who are not academically minded (like myself), there is a wealth of empirical, practice-oriented resources. I have deep respect for science and research, but in language teaching, I feel like experience-based knowledge and skills are equally valuable. I see teaching as both a science and a trade, and in your career, you can kind of lean into whichever one answers your current direction, knowing that the other one is there to back you up. And if you go in a different direction professionally, you can always put your skills towards being a better language learner yourself!
What impact do you hope to have on students as a teacher in this field?
Well, first and foremost, I want my students to go out into the world and apply language in whatever way serves them. There are other things, but the foundation is simple: language ability, whether it is for travelling, work, personal relationships, or something else. That is what I work for. And then, there is everything else: for example, helping students develop general study skills, branch out towards creativity and self-expression instead of mere “correctness”, practice critical thinking. Lord knows, there is a lot to critically think about these days. The field of Russian studies in particular is going through a lot of reevaluation and turmoil, as you may know. It’s confused and it is struggling. I was a month into teaching my first solo course when the full-scale war broke out. It was and remains the elephant in the room that is impossible and wrong to ignore. So, we learned case endings on anti/pro-war slogans, where one vowel, an inflection, makes the whole difference between resistance and denial: нет войне (No to war) – нет войны (there is no war). That was in Novice Russian, and honestly, even if you still struggle to string the words together, you can engage with difficult questions, you have the right and the ability to question things, take agency in the language, make choices.
Maybe a better example of such choices is pronouns, something we learn very early on in language classrooms. Students who are gender-queer or would like to talk about their genderqueer community can and should challenge the grammar they are learning: what is the way to go in a gender-rigid language? And how to reconcile those language choices with the fact in modern Russia, this whole community has been sidelined and demonized, so certain choices are marked to the point of unsafety? I guess the impact I would like to have is showing that there are choices to make, and I am not talking right or wrong: I am talking context, nuance, impact. Now that Russian as a field is desperate to adapt and to be a positive force, I feel like nuance is lost sometimes. In the meantime, the world is getting more polarized. So what good would I do in picking one direction and taking my whole learning community with me? Rejecting prescriptive grammar and teaching norm-bending feminist Russian with its feminitives and “default feminine”, a choice that is not always acceptable, or else, adopting a normative approach so that students sound like most average educated Russian speakers, no matter their views? Insisting students use the preposition “в” with Ukraine instead of the controversial “на”, even though it barely corresponds to the complex language choices in the community? I would rather teach the foundations for informed choices and have students make them for themselves, aware of the consequences and connotations.
Rosebud “Buddy” the fixie-foldie cycle, loves intertown trips but hates hills.
You are in your second year of the programs. Is there any advice you would give to incoming graduate students?
Don’t be a perfectionist: when grad school gets intense, it’s okay to prioritize getting things done over doing them perfectly; “best I can right now” is not always “best”, and it’s fine. We are doing a difficult thing here, and sometimes it really impacts your image of self and self-esteem, especially when you get winded: sometimes it feels like I’m not fast, thorough, hard-working, or creative enough, but the truth is that there is a lot on our plate, and we have to adjust our expectations. After all, grad school is but one part of your life, so don’t let it get to you, define you: enjoy Eugene, read something for pleasure (it’s not a crime, even when other reading is due), take that trip to the coast. I’m pretty sure your cognitive abilities are sharper when you are not in constant stress mode, so you’re doing your learning a favor when you let go. Oh, and check out as many cool books as you can: our library is awesome, and I don’t know how I will live without it and the omnipotent ILL.
Leda, a locally made bike more physically fit for uphill battles than her rider. This location is special to me because I had one of my classes in Agate Hall, but also the chimney is the roosting hotspot for migrating Vaux’s swifts in the Fall and Spring. It is quite a spectacle to watch them funnel in!
What is something outside of language teaching that you enjoy or are passionate about? Or maybe a fun fact about yourself that others may not know?
My two favorite ways to propel myself are walking and biking.
Regarding the former: my dream and goal is through-hiking the Appalachian Trail some time after graduation. It’s over 2000 miles long and takes around 5 months to complete, rain or shine. If you are a walker but never thought hard about it, I really recommend Rebecca Solnit’s book Wanderlust: a History of Walking, or any of the Appalachian Trail chronicles.
Regarding the latter, I would like to share that I have two folding bikes: the blue one is an American Worksman Cycle named Rosebud (Buddy), and the purple one is a Bike Friday by the name Leda. I love them very much and we regularly join bike events in Eugene like the Moonlight Mash or Critical Mass. It’s a lot of fun!