– blog post by Emma Snyder, LTS student
Tell us a bit about yourself and your background, Nicolas!
Nicolas at Alcatraz Island nighttime tour
I was born in Buffalo, Wyoming, and have been moving around ever since. I’ve lived in numerous cities in Wyoming, Colorado, and Oregon. I’ve been in Oregon for the past 12 years and really love it! My academic background started with my undergraduate degree in Linguistics, focusing on pragmatics acquisition through multimedia. Hobbies of mine are gaming, painting miniatures (though I am quite awful), and Legos! I grew up in a multicultural household with Russian and English spoken. Traditions, customs, and celebrations were always important to both sides of the family, and it was a joy to experience such varied events. My father is from Russia, and my mother is from the U.S.
What brought you to language teaching? To the UO?
(From left to right) Eddie, Luka, and myself at Luka’s high school graduation
My mom was a teacher around my current age, so I think that has a large influence. I also have two younger siblings, and I’ve always played the older brother/teacher role. I came to the UO in 2018 with the Pathway Oregon scholarship, ready and giddy to begin learning things that I had chosen. I had a select few ideas coming into the university (anthropology, music, computer science). I found out quite early on my passion for teaching, I think around my sophomore year. We had a project in the Teaching Pronunciation class (shout out to Trish!) that involved helping an international student with their questions regarding English. I distinctly remember the student saying that she had shared all the tools I gave her with her family, which really blew my mind that I was able to help that much. The look on her face and the comments she made about how much I helped really sparked the passion that I still carry today.
What have been some of your past experiences with language teaching? Do you have any specifically fond memories?
I have past experiences scattered around teaching friends Russian phrases and the like to make themselves seem more “exotic.” My past experiences were mostly cultivated during my senior year and during the LTS program. I have many fond memories of teaching the LT 537 Talking with Ducks students, one-on-one tutoring with a traveling scholar and her son, and various other odd-end jobs that required an instructor. I’d say the memory closest to my heart would be hiking with my language exchange partner and teaching him the differences between trees and the various vocabulary English has for sticks. I don’t know what made me so attached to that specific memory. I think it was because of his genuine interest and wonder about “Why does English have so many words for a stick?”
What has been the highlight of your time in the program so far?
Accompanying Dr. Julie Sykes and Stephanie Knight presenting data at AAAL 2022 in Pittsburgh
I would say the highlight has been the curriculum design and assessment topics. Though immensely challenging, I found that it was so rewarding. I learned the true ins and outs of how courses are designed and the best way of assessing the materials being taught. Now knowing these skills, I feel confident that I can craft courses that I have always wished were available during my undergrad years. For instance, I’ve been really focused on refining my curriculum around learning English through theatre. I took a course similar to this in my Freshman year (it was learning Russian through theatre) and never lost that love of embodying a language like we did in that course.
How do you hope to work in the language teaching field in the future?
I am extremely fortunate to be going straight into teaching post-graduation. I will be able to immediately apply all of the incredible skills we have learned through the LTS program as an English lecturer at Tokyo International University starting April 2024.
What is something outside of language teaching that you are passionate about? A fun fact about yourself that others may not know?
Outside of the language teaching context, I spend my time playing video games with friends (one of whom I met 15 years ago this July online; and they’ve said online friends aren’t real, haha). A fun fact I would say is I have never seen nor read the Lord of the Rings series. I feel like it is deemed a right of passage as a linguist, so I better get on that soon.