John Fleming, Political Science major and Russian Studies minor, graduated from ISU in May 2014. We have touched base with John to find out what he has been up to since graduation.
After graduation, I was hired by Language Link Russia as a teacher-intern. At the end of July I flew to Moscow to start an intensive training program on teaching English as a foreign language. The training lasted the month of August and involved lessons on grammar and teaching methodology as well as practical experience teaching different levels to groups of Russian students. After training I moved to Peterhof, a suburb of Saint Petersburg, to start my teaching assignment. I live in a comfortable flat with a British roommate. We are the two native speaker teachers at the school in Peterhof. I work with her as well as several Russian teachers and a couple administrators (both named Oksana) who staff the school. They are all very friendly and have been incredibly helpful. Our school is not far from the Peterhof palace and only a 30 minute marshrutka ride from Saint Petersburg proper. I teach mostly teenage students but I have a class of preteens as well as adults.