When most people ‘take the plunge’, and head half way across the world to teach ESL, the thinking is that they will be home in a year -the length of the contract they sign - but they tend not to consider how their lives, as well as their views on life, will be affected and changed by the experience. A very large percent of teachers will stay for one additional year after completing their first contract, usually staying in the same country; but why limit your experience to just one new culture? As Evelyn Davies explains from her article on visarus.co.uk, there is a lot to learn from different cultures and that not all ESL students are the same.

Japan has an international reputation of having smart and hardworking students. This is the image that is projected to the international community and reinforced by a report by the OECD; which listed Japan as number 5 in the rank of smartest students in the world. So it comes as a huge shock when a native EFL teacher enters a classroom of rude, loud students playing with their cell phones, sleeping, applying makeup or even plucking their eyebrows (in my case these were boys). To discover that the most used English word, other than the colorful language picked up from American Rap music, is “No”; and, that the students have little or no interested in learning a language that has been forced onto them.

The overall level of English ability is very low in Japan even after 6 years of study and even university graduates who have studied English longer still, on the whole, have a very low level. Compounding this is the general low level of speaking skills of the Japanese English teachers.

From online resources I see that Russian students are enthusiastic learners, they have a willingness to challenge and discuss and their level is much higher than those of Japanese students. Certainly this was true of the Japanese and Russian university students I taught in Australia.

The reasons people decide to go to Japan and Russia in the first place are basically the same: A new culture, a new environment, money (for Japan, not Russia), personal development, professional development, adventure and of course sex (usually men not women). The gender and age of the teacher is also a contributing factor. So then why do teachers leave and specifically leave Japan to go to Russia?

For an experienced EFL teacher it is not for the money. It will be one of the other reasons including, maybe for some, the satisfaction of teaching students who want to learn.

Japan has a culture that is very different from many other countries; the same can be said of Russia. While thousands of people are flocking to Japan and general world knowledge of Japan is increasing; Russia still holds the allure of the unknown and I am confident that those who take the leap into the unknown and unfamiliar will be rewarded with experiences that they never expected. And that is exactly what I am expecting.