Tag: education

Book: Lyudmila Zotova “How to Raise a Bilingual Child and Stay Sane”

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In 2014 the topic of bilingualism suddenly became relevant for me. That was the year my family moved to another country, and the children suddenly had to immerse themselves in a school environment not only with a completely different language but also with a different culture. And while one can still argue about the bilingualism of the children who moved with us (although for all of them English has already become more widely used than their original native Russian), with the younger ones, born in Cyprus, there is no question at all.

That is why, observing the development of all the children, I increasingly asked myself how we could help them in mastering several languages, what peculiarities there are, and whether we as parents are doing everything right. And then, at Sandermoen Publishing, a book by Lyudmila Zotova was released under the title How to Raise a Bilingual Child and Stay Sane. I was curious to look at another person’s experience and opinion and perhaps find answers to the questions that troubled me.

Lyudmila’s case is considerably more complicated than mine. She is married to an Italian, lives in France, but in a region near the German border, where the population also speaks German. In relation to her daughter one can already speak not of bilingualism but of tri- or even tetralingualism. However, while her daughter will easily learn the surrounding languages simply through immersion, with the mother’s native language there were peculiarities. And Lyudmila asked herself how to ensure that her daughter would know Russian.

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Varlamov and Cyprus: A Bad Match

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I know that not everyone likes Ilya Varlamov. Ukrainians, at the time, were very offended by his video about Ukraine (and honestly, for good reason—the video is very ambiguous). Still, sometimes he talks in a pretty interesting way about the countries he visits.

But experience shows that this “interestingness” can be very uneven—and sometimes not very accurate, if you have an analytical mind. And if you also know the country he’s talking about… For example, in his series 30 Years After the USSR—which included that infamous Ukraine episode—not every installment gives a full picture of what’s going on. His video about Belarus was also very superficial, basically about nothing. And the ones about the former “-stan” republics are more about refugees than about the countries themselves.

But I’ve been living in Cyprus for almost ten years now, so I’m always interested in reading and watching what people think when they visit this island—an island I already consider my second home. (You can only really call your homeland the country you were born in, but that doesn’t make it better than the others.) A few years ago Ilya Varlamov released a video about Cyprus as well, and even then it struck me as choppy and not very useful.

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We could use the money, no need for the work!

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teachers-protest1

And a bit more about Cypriot schools.

Right now, under my windows, public school teachers in Cyprus are protesting. The picture above isn’t from this protest; it’s from the website www.parikiaki.com, where they covered the teacher protests in 2013.

I haven’t conducted any journalistic investigations, just observing the situation through the news and what some local acquaintances have said. So, I’ll share how I see it, without claiming complete accuracy.

First, just a few facts about schools. Being a teacher in Cyprus is very prestigious and lucrative. Teachers in public schools earn MORE than teachers in private schools. To secure a position in a public school, you have to wait in line with other hopefuls. I don’t know the exact details, but one of my acquaintances has been waiting in such a queue for about 20 years. Yes, you read that right, about twenty years! And this person holds a fairly high-ranking position as a department head at a private British school.

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