VisaRus v1.9

Yep, VisaRus has gone a bit upmarket. For anyone who saw the splash page with the ‘VisaRus will be back and better than ever’ message while the site was temporarily down, I hope you’re not dissapointed

So, the point of inviting friends… well, most EFL-related sites are either about promoting their sponsors (yep, VR neatly avoided that trap) or in one way or another about exploiting their users to some end. Many people will (hopefully) tell you that VR was never like that. It’s generally been about promoting its members.

The point of inviting friends… VR gives you a public profile, which allows you to show off your resume (no accents on this keyboard, lazy to copy and paste from a dictionary), make contacts freely and share information. That’s what the old site was meant to be about, although it ended up being more about me and one other member doling out years of hard-earned experience for little or no thanks.

If you invite your friends, build your network (be it a network of colleagues or students) I assure you – you will never be short of work. My worst times hit me when a change of job coincided with the old VR site going down. Through the old site I always knew that I could find ample work in the swish of a keystroke (or two).

Every new member you introduce as a friend is a contact with contacts. It’s the old pyramid scheme all over again, proven by countless sites across the Web – LinkedIn (okay, now largely defunct, but not focused enough), and a squillion other copycat social networks or ‘professional’ networking sites. VisaRus was there waaaay before, just without the massive resources. Think about that.

So by building your network of people who are ready and willing to exchange information freely (with you and with others) you are playing your part in securing your own future for when faeces hit the fan, or just for when you need moral or professional support.

Your online profile is pretty much a living, evolving resume (still no accents) and there is no reason not to use it for self-promotion. Remember that the rules of VR included a line (ToS to be restored very soon) about not publicly belittling your peers (unless they are being really stupid). It is largely about showing that you are a normal human being with the necessary wits and wherewithal to work in a classroom (not to mention command of the English language). I was always surprised how many people filled out their profiles without capitals, or all in capitals – I had to write special code to fix that – this time I won’t be bothering…

Which brings me to another point. You might have noticed (if you were on the old VR site) that ‘v1.9′ (I decided that it would be fun to give it a version name) is a lot more… erm… ‘cool’ than the old version. This incarnation of the site runs on an open source platform (for those who care) and I’m gradually learning to adapt it to the specific needs of the VR community.

On that note, you may be wondering where our several thousand users dissapeared to… well, by the time the old site went down I was so sick of the ‘please remove my profile, I don’t remember when I signed up to the site but I’m not interested in teaching English in Russia any more’ emails that I reckoned my life would be made easier if the site had a new start.

So here we go, six or seven years on from the first appearance of VR for teachers (and students) we are making a fresh start with a fresh user base. Yep, it’s proably the worst time to relaunch a site about teaching English in Russia given the ever-increasing complications involved, but it’s a good time to weed out the losers and timewasters that abounded on the old site. Incidentally, an archive of the old forums is available at http://visarus.co.uk/forum/ – it will stay online indefinitely for historical and reference purposes.

Quite aside from that, the new site is a great platform for other functions that VR used to perform. There used to be a lesser-known subdomain of VisaRus with a massive (well over 1,000) directory of EFL schools worldwide. I made specially when I was on the lookout for a dream job in Slovenia or anywhere in south-east Europe. Now the focus of VR is on bridging the cliquey country gaps and creating a proper, thriving international EFL community.

Many who were members of the ‘number 1 ESL forum’ who came over to VR described our site along the lines of ‘a breath of fresh air’ compared to the Russia & CIS forums on that well-known forum. Well, now we can continue that spirit on an international level.

ESL-related sites have been historically uncooperative, competitive and generally intolerant of one another. Not surprising when there are masses of advertising money to be had in a generally chaotic and slightly anarchic environment.

I say to hell with that, let’s get sensible. The Web (the medium that all these resources co-exist on) is a shrinking place. Practically every member and occasional visitor of your average ELT-related site has an account on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter or a million other social sites that they spend waaaaay more of their time on. Why? Because people all over the world crave to be part of a larger community.

Especially your average English teacher, and more so if he’s been abroad so long that his friends forget where he comes from. ELT/EFL/ESL on the web has always been a matter of forums, hiding behind screennames, flaming ‘noobs’ (whether that be the subject or the object of the verb) and general one-upmanship.

The Web is also a magical (and often incredibly stupid) place that caters to everything under the Sun. Normal people included. So you can kick as many people off your forum as you like (be it for disclaiming your sponsors, or for subverting your advertisers) – they will always find a place to go. Our other favourite ESL website will never die, but it lost some of its most experienced users through needlessly excessive moderation and banning. It will always be full of noobs.

VR was always welcoming of anyone new to the trade, frank with those who needed to dumb down their expectations and encouraging of those who showed promise. EFL is not rocket science, but it takes certain skills that most people can learn. It’s a valuable profession – try telling otherwise to anyone who wouldn’t have got a top position in a multinational corporation without having fluent English as a second language.

The self-proclaimed elite have had their day – in Russia, at least, more students of English seem to be realising that the latest edition of a textbook is not the key to learning, nor the highly-revered one-month TEFL courses (titles withheld). The ‘crisis’ seems to have reminded some people of the value of hard work, and also of the value of their local currency. More students now are aware that they need extra strings to their bows to be ready for the next ‘crisis’. Something along the lines of Darwinian selection, maybe.

So, the moral of this rant is – sign up and expand your network, don’t be a victim of Darwinian selection :)

For more rants, see the old forum archive at http://visarus.co.uk/forum/viewforum/1930.htm

Do you really want to teach English in Russia? Seriously? Why?!

On the old VisaRus forum this question came up many times – if you’re out here for ‘the wrong reasons’ then you might soon find yourself slumming it on a bench in Moskovsky Vokzal (the central railway station). Actually, a word of advice – Ladozhsky Vokzal is much more pleasant for doing that kind of thing.

I still bump into people who are out here teaching only because it’s the only option they have for earning a living to stay in the country. Their №1 priority is not their career choice, but their choice of locality. Bad start.

Even for a serious teacher, the good old days are long gone. The ‘good old days’ were when you could arrange yourself a 1-year visa, jump on a plane, find work almost anywhere and get started as a full-timer, a freelancer, or a bit of both.

Now the visa regulations are getting tighter and tighter. The only realistic options are to come as  a student (student visa) or to get yourself properly employed with a school or training organisation (teacher’s visa or work visa, respectively).

That’s a drag. You’re then tied to the inviting organisation (or not, depending how adventurous/conniving  you are) and at the mercy of their scruples. Organising official, legal employment is also a headache for the organisations (be they state-licensed as schools or simply companies offering English lessons).

You could aim to get a residence permit if you’re in the long-term-serious mindset. The mind-bogglingly convoluted process it entails is another story for another day, but the benefits would be that you can work pretty much anywhere without extra hassle, for a while.

Another issue is that the corporate clients so many schools built themselves up on have practically gone into hiding. The ‘crisis’ blew a lot of schools’ corporate teaching departments clean out of the water and left a good number of ‘corporate teachers’ desperately running round the city with CVs in hand.

Don’t let me put you off. There are still plenty of opportunities out there. Especially given that many native teachers have jumped ship and more will follow. If you have qualifications and experience, now is a good time to apply speculatively to Russian schools. The days of taking on any old native speaker on a contract with visa are practically gone. The expense of hiring means most schools will be much more picky now.

Add into the equation that, if you’re British, you have a good chance of being a loser in the ‘diplomatic’ battle that you probably don’t even realise is being waged way up above your head. In fact, anyone of any nationality may one day find himself not-very-grata in the eyes of immigration officials. If your foreign diplomats piss someone off, you might have to pay the price. Nice, isn’t it?

I digress – I was trying not to dissuade you… where was I… oh yes, if you find your way round the bureaucratic maze (or just blunder blindly through it, as some people seem to be doing quite successfully) then you will almost certainly benefit from the diminished competition.

Then you can enjoy the woeful winters, slushy springs, suffocating summers and awesome autumns (the only time of year I really enjoy in St. Petersburg).

The next post will be in a better mood. And yes, I will start restoring content from the old site soon.

Just in case anyone was getting worried, we’re fairly sure that most of our members are alive, if not all in Russia.

Yep, it’s a miserable, cold winter and our foreign teaching colleagues have largely left us to shiver in the icy wastes, but we’re still here carving out a living at the chalkboard, so feel free to join up and get back in touch.