Together with foreign investment, top managers of international companies continue to arrive in Ukraine, driving up the demand for Russian language lessons in Ukraine's capital city.

For Kiev language schools, this means opportunities for business growth and a need to expand their Russian teaching staff, school managers say.

"We have twice as any foreigners taking Russian lessons at our school this year compared to last year," says Natalie Gendzelyuk, marketing manager at the Kiev branch of International House (IH), one of the largest groups of language schools worldwide with 130 schools in 45 countries.

According to Gendzelyuk, the school recently hired more Russian language teachers due to the increased demand from foreigners and is now looking to bring in a couple more Russian language teachers before the start of the new academic year in September.

The majority of inquiries for Russian lessons during the last several months have come from foreign companies planning long-term business activities in Ukraine, explained Gendzelyuk.

For example, Gendzelyuk mentioned the foreign staff of IKEA, a Sweden-based international furniture retailer that is currently in the process of applying for land to construct a shopping mall on the outskirts of Kiev, as one of the school's current clients.

Julia Verezumska, client services manager at Epoch of International Education, agrees with Gendzelyuk, attributing the recent splash in the popularity of Russian lessons to the arrival of serious foreign businesses in the country.

"The new students we have taken on this summer are mostly English, German, Italian and Polish native speakers, whose business contracts start this fall and who are involved in the baking, insurance, auditing and retail sectors," said Verezumska, who didn't specify the names of the companies her students represent.

Austrian Ulf Wallmann, 27, is one of Epoch's current students.

Wallmann started his Russian lessons last January, two months after his arrival in Ukraine on a term tasked with streamlining the operational standards of Austrian-owned Raiffaisen Bank at its new acquisition - Ukraine's Aval Bank.

"Many people at Aval speak English, so the truth is that I can manage without Russian," said Wallmann.

"But you can never really make the connections to the country and its people without knowing the local language," he added.

"Without the language, I feel like I don't have any legs," he said.

Wallmann has been taking three lessons per week since January, but he said that he hasn't yet progressed as far as he would like to due to "laziness".

Lessons for all

According to Verezumska, the number of foreign students studying Russian and Ukrainian at Epoch is now five times higher that what the school had three years ago, with 20-40 new students registering every month.

"Foreign students now make up for nearly a half of the school's total student count," said Verezumska. Apart form Russian and Ukrainian, Epoch offers a dozen other languages, including English, she said.

"Also, we have seen a demand for Ukrainian language lessons from Russian managers who have been coming to work in Ukraine; this has become more apparent in the last six months." - Julia Verezumska, Epoch of International Education.

Foreign clients want to be able to speak and understand Russian, and they are not much concerned about reading of writing properly, noted Verezumska. However, she added, the courses are tailored to meet each student's individual needs. For instance, high-ranking managers, who make up the majority of Epoch's clients, usually don't have time for homework. They also prefer having individual lessons at their homes or offices.

Verezumska said the cultural peculiarities of the clients have to be considered by the teachers, as well.

"Canadians and Americans need a quick and practical approach to learning the language using role games and real life situations, while Scandinavians and Brits like it to be more traditional and slow-paced," noted Verezumska. She said that if a person is relatively good at languages and studies Russian or Ukrainian intensively for several hours a day, no matter what nationality he is, he will be able to maintain a conversation on general topics in month.

Foreigners opt to study Russian, as opposed to Ukrainian, because it's a more practical language to know, explains Verezumska. Ukrainian, she said, is usually requested by foreigners with Ukrainian roots of managers who deal with Ukrainian documentation a lot.

"Also, we have seen a demand for Ukrainian language lessons from Russian managers who have been coming to work in Ukraine," noted Verezumska. "This is something new, becoming more apparent in the last six months," she said.

Gendzelyuk of International House said another recent trend has been foreigners coming to Ukraine for a holiday and then deciding to hang around for a while and learn some Russian.

Such people, Gendzelyuk said, go for intensive language courses, spending several hours every day studying.

This is just what Swiss Alexander Gaillard and his friend have been doing for the last three months in Ukraine.

"We come to Kiev with a particular goal - to study Russian," said Gillard. He said they first planned to stay for seven months but now see they would need more time to master the language, which could be as long as two years.

Gaillard also said that they considered Moscow for learning Russian, too, but then dropped it as an option out of financial considerations.

"Both lessons and accommodations would be much more expensive in Moscow than in Kiev," he explained.

Looking beyond Ukraine

Verezumska of Epoch says they would love to attract more foreigners, like Gaillard, to their school.

According to her, only 20 percent of the school's current foreign students come to Ukraine specifically to learn the language.

"We are currently working out a marketing strategy for promoting our services abroad - targeting foreigners who wish to come to Kiev with the aim of studying the language," Verezumska said, adding that the school still has done no advertising of its Russian lessons abroad, despite the obvious demand. However, the school's management is eager to fix this situation.

"We already have interested agents in Great Britain and Turkey who are willing to cooperate with us on bringing students to Ukraine," added Verezumska. She said a separate website dedicated to the school's Russian and Ukrainian for foreigners' courses is also in its plans.

That way, we will let people know that what they would pay $400-$600 for in Moscow we can offer them for $200-$400, said Verezumska, referring to the one-week intensive Russian language course.

Kiev Post

27^th, July 2006

Page 8

By Yulianna Vilkos