About

About Me

Привет, меня зовут Грей, и я твой русский учитель!

My name is Gray. I am American but have been living in Edinburgh, Scotland for the past 6 years. My journey with Russian started when I was very young. I always loved the idea of learning another language and would even invent my own. When I first encountered Russian, I was fascinated by the cryptic beauty of the alphabet and the sounds of the language. Thus began a fascination with Russian and other Slavic languages, histories, and cultures that remains to this day.

I have been learning Russian for more that 7 years through self-teaching, tutoring, and at the university level. In 2019, I went to Russia for a month to conduct field research in dacha gardening practices.

I began teaching Russian 2 years ago when some friends asked if I could teach them. I developed a course from the methods and resources I had used to teach myself. I fell in love with teaching and have been regularly running courses since. In that time, I have developed a unique teaching style that is based on empowering students to teach themselves the language with the support of myself, native speakers, and learning materials. My classes are participatory and fun. I believe motivation is key to learning a language and so learning about the history and culture of Russian-speaking peoples is part of the course (and I hope will bring students a richer understanding of current events). I use a mix of materials to teach including books, movies, conversation, games, and apps.

If you join one of my courses, I hope to share some of my passion and knowledge and give you the confidence in Russian you need to get out there and use the language!