Last year, I lived and worked in Russia as an English language teaching fellow (ELF) with the state depart -ment conducting teacher development seminars for teachers-as many as possible, as often as possible.

Every waking moment was spent planning workshops and activities, pouring over methodology books and journals from my teaching methodology dowry, and surfing the Net for engaging and instructive communicative activities to blow back the teachers' set and staid hair.

My audience was vast and diverse-from those teaching in the humblest provincial villages to those in well-equipped, wired schools in Russia's sprawling metropolises where children of the elite-with their armed bodyguards nearby-studied.

The Dog-and-Pony Show
I wish I could say that my efforts to spread the pedagogical gospel made a huge impact and boosted legions of jaded, demoralized teachers that I armed them with fresh, exciting ideas for their educational bag of tricks, rekindling a love of teaching that had (once?) burned brightly.

But I'll never really know because the ELF program demanded that I spend as much time on the road as possible, a Herculean goal in the biggest country on the planet. The state department wanted numbers. Big, quantifiable numbers. There was little opportunity for follow-up, observation, or in-depth discussion. While the intrepid traveler in me was happy to comply, the practical teacher in me had serious misgivings that anything meaningful could result from these one-shot workshops. Frankly, the whole year is sort of a blur.

I do recall making lots of photocopies at the consulate, packing and unpacking suitcases, buying plane and train tickets in my third-grade Russian, telling corny jokes to rooms full of reserved and slightly wary teachers, some who'd been teaching when I was in diapers and others who were in diapers when I was in high school.

In my heart of hearts, I knew that the dog-and-pony show model wasn't really effective. Still, I tried to make it enjoyable and edutaining for teachers as I worked those drafty rooms on Saturday mornings in Novgorod, Arkangelsk, Murmansk, and countless other cities.

Professional Development, Russian Style
Russia is a country with a proud and established pedagogical tradition and teacher development comes in many varieties, too. It can mean city, state, or school-sponsored seminars or master classes (or peer coaching in the US) where experienced teachers share their knowledge with a group of teachers.

In larger cities, free teacher development workshop series are conducted by fellows like me at libraries or community centers (usually former culture or pioneer palaces) or by the British Council (BC). The BC conducts year-long courses for a small fee like RESPONSE (Russian Education Support Project on Specialist English), which was developed by a team of British and Russian language specialists and was facilitated by Russian university professors.

I've met progressive teachers who engage in action research and teachers who've formed sharing groups to discuss ideas and problems. But these are the exceptions. For the most part, teachers in Russia are an overburdened lot and many grumble that it's not fair to expect so much considering their pitiful salaries.

Many teachers were guarded and reluctant to share with peers. As a fellow working in Yekaterinburg wrote recently, "Teachers get in their cliques here. I've never met so many teachers that have "enemies." They even hide lesson plans and books from each other!"

Intrigues and cliques aside, professional teachers' associations like FEELTA (Far East English Language Teaching Association) or SPELTA (St. Petersburg) as well as teacher refresher academies (see below) are key engines that fuel inservice teacher development in Russia.

Most Russian teachers agree that time and money are problems hindering professional development opportunities. But, as my teacher friend Irina wrote, "To find ways to develop, a teacher SHOULD WANT TO DEVELOP."

Teacher Refresher Academies
One of the few positive holdovers from Soviet times are the teacher refresher academies. These academies are buildings in larger towns and cities which conduct recommended inservice trainings.

In Soviet times, every few years, teachers were required to take as much as an entire semester off to attend refresher courses to keep them abreast of developments and technology in their area: mathematics, art and music, or physics. Since the Soviet breakup in 1991, the future of this venerable institution has been in question. Many of them simply closed due to financial problems.

St. Petersburg, where I was based, happens to host one of the most respected academies, drawing hundreds of teachers from all over the sprawling Leningrad oblast or region.

A Door Is Opened
Once I learned about the Lomonosov (after a famous Russian educator) academy I was determined to become embedded-at least, when I wasn't on the road. This wasn't easy because the administration was conservative, fossilized. But my polite tenacity paid off and a door finally opened. My reward: three groups of teachers to work with.

Several discussions and needs assessments later, I learned that many were ambivalent about being there, especially the experienced ones. The green teachers-schools today are full of job changers, people made redundant by Russia's changing economy, who are trying their hand at teaching-were hungry for ideas and methods-or they were silent, intimidated, bored.

Balancing Act
Another wrench thrown in the borscht was the disparity between what the academy directors wanted me to teach-grammar, vocabulary, collocations-and what the teachers themselves wanted to learn about-American youth culture, idiomatic English, modern music, literature, and history.

As a result, my seminars became a balancing act where I tried to satisfy two audiences. The directors wanted to prepare teachers for the high-stakes, unified state exam (Russia's "No Child Left Behind"), but teachers were miserable when we delved into this eye-crossingly dull stuff.

Despite the balancing act, I enjoyed teaching at the academy and feel that these seminars with teacher-selected themes, opportunities for follow-up and debate, sharing and reflection are far more enduring than my one-size-fits-all dog-and-pony-show trainings.

Linda Werbner has been teaching ESL, EFL, and literacy for ten years. She currently teaches ESL literacy at Jewish Vocational Services and is determined to master the banjo. She can be reached at: lwerbner@hotmail.com