Susan Dugdale, New Zealand: "To Russia with Love"

Learn English with Susan Dugdale.

Susan Dugdale from Wellington (New Zealand) taught courses of English language training in the Institute of Translators of our university. Susan Dugdale is the E-connections manager of Thomson Reuters New Zealand, the author of original methods of professional diction and phonetics training, as well as speechwriter, producer of Drama Theatre, anchorwoman of announcer courses on the national TV and so on.

On October 9, 2013 Susan Dugdale and her husband Murray John Dugdale, the owner of the construction company “Strait Building Projects”, met with Vladimir Khvorenkov, Vice-Rector for Education and representatives of Kalashnikov ISTU administration.

The vice-rector thanked the guests for their visit and noted that Kalashnikov ISTU is actively developing international relations, it has long-term partners from Eastern Europe and Africa, and “undoubtedly we are happy to expand our contacts to New Zealand”.

Susan Dugdale also thanked the host and said, “Guests from New Zealand come to Russia not so frequently…, we are not close neighbors, and the past of Cold War also influenced, and this is still quite unusual… However, talking to my students and ISTU staff I was convinced that everybody understands that we have more in common than differences…

Izhevsk University gives an impression of very dynamic energetic life, it is young student environment as well as in any university. It seemed to me that comparing with our universities your students are more serious and focused, concentrated on their goals, on the path they have chosen.

As for my English courses, first of all, I was surprised that all the trainees are women! But I was told that in Russia English language is taught by women…

Our classes are very intensive: it is 4-5 hours of quite hard work a day. And I realized that my students are aiming to take everything possible from our classes, to use all my materials, etc. Some of my tasks, that they had to perform, are unusual and difficult, but they were not scared, they performed all the tasks, trusting me that it is necessary and right”.

According to lecturer of the Institute of Translators Valery Shilin: “Susan has prepared wonderful material. Relevant, interesting, informativeandtopical for ourcountrytoday. Course participants are lecturers of English language and course methodology, facial expressions, speech and communication style are of special interest. It is early to summarize, but I can say: “We hit the bull’s eye.”

At the meeting the possible future cooperation was also discussed: from personal professional contact (all the course participants would like to keep it up) to discussing new proposals in the field of business cooperation, in particular, the idea of cooperation in developing applications for mobile phones (special applications for learning spoken language), possible contacts between the Faculty of Advertising and Design and design laboratory of university in Wellington, etc. On the same day following the invitation of the dean of the faculty Mikhail Chernykh the guests from New Zealand visited the annual exhibition of student works “Teacher and Students”.

After the meeting Susan Dugdale answered some questions of ISTU press about her first impressions of Izhevsk, about the title and content of her course and about “the recipe of the best language learning from Susan”.

According to Susan who is for the first time not only in Izhevsk, but also in Russia: “in Izhevsk people are very friendly, and that was a surprise to us. We were always told that Russians are very reserved people, and in the airport we saw a lot of unsmiling people in the first minutes, but…we came here and made sure that people who live in Izhevsk are very sociable and open”.

My course doesn’t have the name, but I call it “To Russia with love” for myself. The course content is diction, articulation, proper breathing, phonetics, body language, voice modulations, and melody of speech (rhythm and pauses). All this is very important if you want people to understand your speech well. Types of speech, its peculiarities in different situations (commercial talks, conversations with friends, public speech) should fit the situation and they have their own characteristics.

The recipe of successful learning of foreign language from Susan Dugdale is to learn it from childhood, as a native language.

The second way is to be among native speakers, who can have time for you, who is able to communicate with you, explain secrets of the language, and the most important to immerge you in this language environment. If it is impossible, this environment should be created: to read as much as possible, to listen to audio records, watch TV and movies. Language should be in your ears, and at the tip of your tongue. But a real teacher, native speaker, living language is more efficiently and the best”.

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Last Updated on Tuesday, 29 October 2013 16:22