A Canadian teaching business English to Ukrainians.
It was an editor colleague of mine at the Post who had dropped the idea that Stuart might be a potential candidate for this Word with… feature and had given me his telephone number. And all that my colleague – very typical of him – would tell me in his brisk manner was that, “the guy has got an interesting last name.” You will understand that, with such a helpful briefing, I was not expecting to meet with a teacher, let alone one running his own school.
Stuart Savage is from Canada and has an interesting personal history. “I have French Norman ancestry. My forebears settled down in Eastern Canada in 1726.” He is also, justifiably, proud of his teaching pedigree. “My family has a long lineage of teachers and scholars. My own mother is an Egyptologist.”
Stuart has been in Ukraine now for a little more than two years. His first visit was in 2005 as a tourist. “I was watching a documentary on CNN about post-Orange Revolution Ukraine with my mother. Suddenly, my mother asked me where I was planning to spend my sabbatical. I answered, with no rhyme or reason, Ukraine, and forgot all about it. A month or so later she called me up and asked me to drop by at her place. There, I was introduced to a Ukrainian lady – an interior architect – and was informed that if I were planning to go to Ukraine, this lady would be able to provide me with an apartment in Kyiv. Of course, my mother had her own self interest in the project – she wanted me to do a bit of field research for her at some ancient Greek settlement in Crimea!”
That first visit, initially meant as a two-month sojourn, metamorphosed into an unexpected and not altogether welcome teaching assignment lasting six months. “One fine morning, almost towards the end of my scheduled stay, I got a call from an English-language school imploring me to help them out, since they were desperately short of teachers. I was not at all enthusiastic, but eventually agreed to take it on for the remainder of my stay.”
What changed his mind, I asked Stuart. “The very first lesson I gave. There, facing me was this group of students – each and every one of them motivated. Their desire to learn was almost palpable. I was so inspired and enthralled. Never in my 14-year teaching career back in Canada, had I known that sensation.”
From then on, according to Stuart, he knew that his future was in Ukraine. “I suddenly realized that I could make a contribution to Ukraine. I also knew that my work here as a teacher would be greatly rewarding – not in economic terms, but in sheer job satisfaction.”
To the great astonishment of his parents and friends, Stuart relocated to Kyiv and set up the Kiev Canadian Business School. How is the venture going and has he had any second thoughts about the move he made – I enquired. “I am perfectly happy here and thoroughly enjoying my work. Now that Ukraine is moving more and more towards a free-market economy, my students are realizing that the language skills they learn at my institution, if properly applied, would enhance their status at their work place as well as increase their remuneration.”
Stuart is a well-dressed gent with dark hair and an open manner and looks much younger than his 47 years of age. As a teacher, he knows the value of acquiring communication skills and seems to enjoy imparting those skills to his students. With that in mind, I could not help but ask him why women here seem to be more adept at learning languages than Ukrainian men. “It is not just here. Scientific studies have proven that women have about 20 percent more communication skills than men.”
I gathered, from our short chat, that Stuart is a busy man and the school he runs takes up most of his time. Does he, perchance, find time to give private lessons too, I wondered. “Not many, but yes I do have a few private students.” Here he smiled and said, “You know, my youngest student is a four-year-old gem of a girl and my oldest student is a wonderful 60-year-old lady.”
