[etni] Language Learning Popular as Ever

Language Learning Popular as Ever
The St. Petersburg Times - February 26, 2008

The thirst for learning English and other foreign languages continues as 
Russians travel more and seek international business partners.

When Russia opened its doors to the market economy about one and half 
decades ago, it took people off-guard and ill-equipped to meet the 
challenges of a culturally and technologically diversified world. It was a 
puzzle to the outgoing Iron Curtain generation whose commercial lexicon went 
no further than that of a centralized planned economy based on the communist 
ideological doctrine.

But since communism was no more and the former Soviet satellite states had 
shunned Russian as their medium of communication, it marked the dawn of a 
new era and the birth of a new breed of Russians who would adapt themselves 
to the changing business environment. They needed a new language to win the 
confidence of the outside business world where Russian was no more than the 
language of a die-hard communist.

Now, 16 years later, "a job seeker’s resume in the business sector faces a 
high risk of being dumped in the dustbin if it lacks a foreign language," 
says Christina Shklyar, director of the St. Petersburg-based Best Teach 
language center. "In the eyes of an employer, a job seeker who speaks at 
least one foreign language, especially English, is better than two who speak 
none," says Shklyar, whose school has an average of 2,000 students learning 
English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Finnish.

"Though we don’t look down upon other disciplines, English remains a 
priority, as about 90 percent of our trainees specialize in the language," 
she says. Hers is one among more than a thousand privately owned language 
schools that mushroomed following Russia’s entry into the market economy.

(To read the whole article, go to -
http://www.etni.org/news/popular_as_ever.htm  )


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