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Russian as a foreign language

I am a native Russian with a Bachelor Degree (Hon) from Moscow. I would like to find a teaching job in the UK , teaching Russian as a foreign language in a UK college/university.
Could anyone kindly advise what qualification I should obtain to be able to apply for such a job?
I would be grateful for any advice.
To be an academic proper you'll normally need a PhD, and most of the time you get hired for your academic research (skills) rather than teaching ability. However, for languages it's common to have teaching assistants/associates who might only have a (I would imagine academic) masters or so, as I understand. They might well be working on or towards their doctorate while doing such teaching work, although I think it's less uncommon to have non-doctoral students teaching for languages (compared to other subjects). For university level teaching, there isn't a requirement (at least legally) to have formal teaching qualifications, but it may be useful to have experience or some qualifications in this regard if you're specifically applying to teaching roles.

I'd suggest contacting some languages departments at UK universities to see what they're looking for; I'm sure they'll welcome enquiries and be able to give more advice :smile:
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irina luke
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Thank you very much for the reply.
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irina luke
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Original post by artful_lounger
To be an academic proper you'll normally need a PhD, and most of the time you get hired for your academic research (skills) rather than teaching ability. However, for languages it's common to have teaching assistants/associates who might only have a (I would imagine academic) masters or so, as I understand. They might well be working on or towards their doctorate while doing such teaching work, although I think it's less uncommon to have non-doctoral students teaching for languages (compared to other subjects). For university level teaching, there isn't a requirement (at least legally) to have formal teaching qualifications, but it may be useful to have experience or some qualifications in this regard if you're specifically applying to teaching roles.

I'd suggest contacting some languages departments at UK universities to see what they're looking for; I'm sure they'll welcome enquiries and be able to give more advice :smile:

Thank you. Do you know if this applies to schools also?
Original post by irina luke
Thank you. Do you know if this applies to schools also?


For schools you would need a teaching qualification such as a PGCE as I understand, although perhaps not if you were e.g. teaching English as a second language or something. @04MR17 might know a bit more there.

That said, languages aren't super well supported in schools currently from what I know, and Russian is a very uncommon language in schools (I mean I've never actually heard of a school offering GCSE/A-level Russian, although I expect a few e.g. private schools might). As such you would probably find more opportunities at universities than in schools for Russian language teaching I would imagine...
(edited 5 years ago)
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irina luke
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Thank you. That was very helpful.

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