ONE of the most exciting things our club has done is sponsor the Teachers to Russia exchanges, working in schools in Novgorod and Moscow helping the students learn to pronounce the English language. Each October, people from all over the United States and Canada joined Jim Tolbert in these exchanges, and the past four years have seen 120 people working with hundreds of teachers and thousands of students.

Jim Tolbert in a Moscow classroom working
with a map donated by Friendship Force.

MOST of the schools have never had a native English-speaking person in the classroom, and they find having us there provides lots of incentive to speak the language.The teachers and students are unanimous when they ask for three things: 1) That we come more often, 2) that we stay longer, and 3) that we bring more people to help. There are many schools in both cities that are asking for our help and we need more people to assist these children with their English.

This program is currently in hiatus until the sponsorship can be assumed by another group.

VLADIMIR AVERKIN, Superintendent of Schools for the Novgorod Region (shown here with Jim Tolbert and Elena Agafanova, president ot the Novgorod Friendship Force) is enthusiastic about the work we are doing. He commented that it is good not only for the teachers and students, but good for the community that we come and share with them.


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To read Moscow Musings newspaper columns written by Graham Kislingbury, editor of the
Albany Democrat-Herald, while he was in Russia with the October 2005 Teachers to Russia Exchange,
CLICK HERE