How Not to Win "Hearts and Minds"

From Johnson's Russia List:

Russian Schoolchildren Allege Mistreatment in US English Language Program

Rossiyskaya Gazeta
August 6, 2007
Article by Vladislav Kulikov: "Tourist Trip
Survival Course; Russian Schoolchildren Treated Like Criminals in USA"

A scandal erupted yesterday with Russian
children, who had encountered purely American hospitality.

A group of schoolchildren, who had gone on an
educational program to study English in
California, but in essence found themselves in
survival courses, returned to Moscow.

"This was simply awful, I will never again go to
America," said 16-year old Yulya, exiting the
arrivals gate at Sheremetyevo-2. "They simply
hate us there. They housed us in a dormitory,
where the doors did not close. They were
constantly digging around in our things. The
director of the dormitory, her name was Nancy,
was always saying, "you, Russians, are lame-brains."

Also, as the children recounted, shady characters
of all nationalities wandered about the corridors
of the student campus "and offered drugs, sex,
and anything you wanted." We will note that the
youngest of our schoolchildren were 11 years old,
and the eldest--16-18. They had expected
something entirely different from America.

"Initially, it was presumed that the children
would be housed with families," the mother of one
of the trip participants, Tatyana Sinchenko, told
our Rossiyskaya Gazeta correspondent. "The tour
was called 'Host Family,' and was very expensive.
I would not allow myself such a thing, but one
spares no expense for one's child. Literally at
the last moment, at the airport before the
flight, the parents were informed that there were
no host families for our children, and therefore
they would be housed in dormitories at the
California State University in Long Beach. If
someone refused, they would not get all their money back."

Literally 20 minutes before the start of
registration for the flight, the shocked parents
signed consent forms, agreeing to this
"force-majeur circumstance." We learned about the
fact that, in accordance with this "new" program,
the children would go hungry on weekends and in
the evenings already from their reports from the other continent.

The happy American tour was organized by English
First--the world's largest private educational
company, specializing in language instruction.
That is now it describes itself on its website.
But, judging by the recounts of parents, the
clients of the educational company are treated as
they would be by some fly-by-night tourist firm,
or even worse. When the children started having
problems, the management of the Russian branch
office suddenly became unreachable. Whoever
answered the phone knew absolutely nothing, and did not want to know anything.

The most outrageous incident during the tour
occurred with a 15-year old girl, against whom
unfounded accusations of using alcohol were
leveled and she was taken to the police station,
where she was treated like a criminal.

"After that, my daughter was kept locked up for 2
days, without food or water," the girl's mother,
Yelena Fishkova, said with indignation. "Why, that is a matter for a lawsuit!"

They kept her locked up not at the police
station, but in the dormitory, where the director
made something akin to her own jail. She locked
children up in her office without food. They were
allowed only to drink and go to the bathroom, and
only then if they asked nicely. Even after the
police issued a statement as to the innocence of
the girl from Russia, the director continued to
keep her imprisoned. The schoolgirl was released
only after her mother made special arrangements
for a lawyer to intervene on her behalf. Need we
say that the parents of the girl never received
any assistance from the associates of the Russian branch of English First?

"The group included 28 children and three
adults," say representatives of English First.
"This problem was raised by two mothers out of
the entire group. The rest had no complaints. I
believe that we did our work well."

However, our Rossiyskaya Gazeta correspondent did
not meet a single satisfied parent at
Sheremetyevo-2. On the contrary, we managed to
collect a set of business cards of fathers, who
said that they were preparing a lawsuit.

International educational programs are a
necessary and good thing, we cannot argue with
that. Furthermore, this is a fairly good business
for the English-speaking countries, where they
make money off of people's interest in the
language of international communication. By
organizing language courses, the countries are
killing two birds with one stone: They are
earning money, and they are spreading their
culture. And they are getting a tiny bit of a
foreign one. Thanks to this, it becomes easier
for people on different continents to find a
common language. But not this time. We need not
recount the impression with which the children
left America. They never did learn English.

"I am at level five," Olya Fishkova told our
Rossiyskaya Gazeta correspondent. "But they gave
me elementary things to learn, such as 'do you
speak English?'." But I wanted to brush up on my grammar.