Late last year, a great group of students from Russia came to learn English at City Language School and to travel around Ireland. Their group leader Tamara Spiridonova sat down with us to tell us how much they had enjoyed their stay.
Hi Tamara. We believe this is your first time bringing students abroad.
I have never done this before with students so it’s a little bit different. I brought seven students over from my university of Saratov, four more from another university one more student from Moscow.
So how has the trip been so far?
It has been really wonderful. The students have really praised the classes which is really good, because for me as an educator this is the main point of coming here.
That\’s great. What do you think of Dublin?
Personally, I love Ireland more and more with each day. It’s my first visit.
I’ve enjoyed Dublin very much. It’s a most unusual capital in that there are no skyscrapers, people live in their homes, everything is nice and cosy and I believe that traditions are well preserved here.
It seems Irish people are very hospitable people, the hospitality is unbelievable. People are very helpful. In the street you can stop any stranger and you will be explained and shown everything. And this flavour of Ireland, if I can put it like that, is nice and sweet and fresh and I think it’s beautiful, I think Ireland is beautiful.
Are you all staying with host families?
Everyone is staying in host families, so it means they can learn the culture from the inside. They are inside Irish homes, it differs greatly from staying at a hotel or a youth hostel they can see how Irish people live and you can enjoy the comfort of the home which is really great.
19-year-olds Arina & Alina are both studying English Language and Linguistics and hope to become teachers. Both students attended two ninety-minute General English Classes in the morning which was followed by a topic rich conversation class which lasted 45 minutes.
\”I like the classes very much,\” says Arina. \”We had different teachers and it’s very interesting to have different people from different countries to talk to. We discussed different topics. For example, we talked about food and then today we spoke about health issues and health systems in our countries and it was very interesting.
Each day after class the group took mini tours around the capital. For Arina, the trip by train to Howth was something she \”enjoyed very much\”.
\”We had traditional fish and chips,\” she recalls. \”We liked it very much too but it contains a lot of fat.\”
Her friend and fellow student, Alina, attended lessons in a different class.
\”We have some Brazilians, some students from Mexico, Uruguay and Russia and two boys from Austria,\” she explains. \”Our teacher was Rachel. She is very passionate and I like the way she explains things to us. Her explanations are very good.\”