This week I have participated in the Philological Conference in Saint Petersburg. It is an indispensable part of a university lecturer life  to keep up with innovations or contribute to the progress in your field speaking to colleagues or writing articles. About a thousand speakers took part in it and the Lingvodidactic section welcomed about 30 researchers mostly from Russia and Ukraine. In spite of the «methodological infancy» of Translation Studies we managed to form a perspective of further developments and assessment procedures were frequently mentioned as the keystone of the improvement. Constructivism in translator training was my subject matter and I ran the risk to demonstrate the advantages of the approach through the dialogue with the audience. I guess some people didn’t consider the talk as a speech at all as it had not been to the regular format they got used to. However, most of the participants looked interested and asked questions as well as shared experience and provided solutions.

The second name of Saint Petersburg is the cultural capital of Russia and you can feel it in the air. All people we spoke to were exceptionally polite – may be the palaces, theaters, history and art around shape another kind of mentality. Once I asked the way and a student produced such an instruction I almost forgot my destination – it was a masterpieces of rhetoric. The young people of the capital seem more advanced, dynamic and free in self-expression then the students in Siberia. Speaking English is seen as a norm and other foreign languages matter. Perhaps one more reason is the competition they face being so close to Europe and belonging to the 3 million of the city population (cf. about a million in Krasnoyarsk). When I reveal this fact to students at our English classes they agree that some extra efforts (except obligatory home task) should be made but their further actions prove they don’t consider self-development as something vital for their survival and success. Teaching - preaching does not work and the more job they plan and do themselves the better decisions they can make. Taking total personal responsibility teaches students independent thinking, develops vision and leads to achievements. Constructivism proclaims– let students act, take initiative, "get infected". Is it possible to let students create the entire learning process independently? To what extent can you be a constructivist teacher?