{"id":8215,"date":"2020-05-04T21:10:14","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T03:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/?p=8215"},"modified":"2026-02-06T18:39:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T01:39:49","slug":"evgenii-teaching-in-kuwait-and-starting-his-tefl-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/evgenii-teaching-in-kuwait-and-starting-his-tefl-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Evgenii, From Russia, on Teaching in Kuwait and Starting His Own TEFL Business"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Evgenii is an IDELTOnline<\/a> grad, elementary school teacher, online teacher, and business owner, currently living in Kuwait. He began his TEFL\/TESOL career in his home country, Russia, but eventually decided to broaden his horizons to teach abroad, getting his start teaching in Thailand<\/a>. Alongside teaching, he has also developed his own online language school through mobile messaging, called ChatEDU. He shares his interesting career path.<\/em><\/p>\n

Could you start by telling us a bit about yourself?<\/h2>\n

My name is Evgenii. I am 36 years old and a non-native English teacher.\u00a0 I was born in the Russian Far East on the border with China. Currently, I am an elementary ELL teacher at a top-tier international school in Kuwait. Prior to that, I taught\u00a0in Bangkok, Thailand at British Curriculum, American Curriculum, and International Baccalaureate Schools. Before relocating to Thailand, I taught EFL in Russia.<\/p>\n

\"teacher

Evgenii with his daughter, in Kuwait<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

After teaching in your home country of Russia, what inspired you to teach abroad?<\/h2>\n

Teachers in Russia at state schools have been underpaid for quite a long time. I thought their lives would change for the better. Also, when I was a kid, I always dreamt of traveling. I realized at some point that it was time I started traveling. It\u2019s just that I do have a traveler\u2019s or nomad\u2019s soul and spirit. Teaching in Thailand was good; the country is indescribably beautiful, but I didn\u2019t like the idea of being paid less because I was a non-native English teacher. A top-tier international school in Kuwait offered me the same salary and package as qualified native English teachers always get offered. I dreamt of teaching in Japan<\/a> but I found myself in Thailand and now Kuwait.<\/p>\n

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What is your current teaching job? What would a typical day look like?<\/h2>\n

I am teaching at a top-tier international school in Kuwait. It is the American Curriculum school, a\u00a0WIDA school,<\/a> (which stands for World-class Instructional Design and Assessment).<\/span><\/p>\n

My typical day starts quite early. For the last 3 months, because I was doing my IDELTOnline<\/em> course, I would wake up at 2:30 a.m. to work on it. But as a rule, I wake up around, 3 or 4 a.m., have my early snacks, and get ready for this new school day. We have to be at school at 6:45 a.m. So, when I wake up early, I want to make sure that I am not late, watch something useful in terms of teaching, learn something new regarding my job. I always ensure that I keep up with the world.\u00a0<\/span>Our school working hours are until 3:30 p.m. and then I do my extra classes: I teach students online<\/a> from all over the world.<\/p>\n

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\"teacher

Evgeni with his students in Thailand<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

You own a business called ChatEDU. Tell us more about that.<\/h2>\n

I have been running my successful business for over 3 years now. I have a websites: www.chatedu.ru<\/a>. We are partnering with many different educational organizations from Great Britain, the USA, and Russia. Now I am starting to do partnerships with some universities in Russia and am willing to see any opportunities to start partnering with other universities in different parts of the world.<\/p>\n

I am teaching English and Russian through mobile messengers and have been doing this since 2015. Computer Assisted and Language Learning and Mobile Assisted Language Learning have been trendy for quite a while. I am creating an Uber for teaching languages. My websites are being upgraded now. Then, I will launch mobile applications.<\/p>\n

I am also doing a lot of charity. I have been running my own Facebook group for over 6 years (6,800 members). We are helping all Russian-speaking people from ex-USSR countries who find themselves in trouble in Thailand. A non-native English teacher is able to find a decent highly-paid ESL job with all the benefits.<\/p>\n

\"teacher

At an event in Kuwait, where he is now teaching<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Why did you choose to take Bridge’s IDELTOnline<\/em><\/a> course?<\/h2>\n

The reason why I took the IDELT is because I am willing to challenge myself, grow professionally, and become recognized and appreciated as a non-native English teacher. I am doing a partnership with Bridge now because I want to help people choose decent TEFL courses<\/a> over trash. There are many TEFL companies out there that aren’t worthy of dealing with because they are unreliable or their reputation is shabby. Bridge is a reliable TEFL company who I fully trust and like. The courses provided by Bridge are informative and the instructors are real experts in their field; they know what they are doing and how to best deliver the course! I love their courses! I got some missing pieces of the puzzle that I needed. For example, I lacked in the theory; I needed to refresh my knowledge in terms of teaching languages.<\/p>\n

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\"lunchtime

Evgenii in Thailand<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

Did you earn your digital badge<\/a>\u00a0for your IDELTOnline<\/em> Course, and if so, do you use it anywhere?<\/h2>\n

I did earn my digital badge and I would like to say thanks to the Bridge team for that. I do display it on my Facebook page and LinkedIn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Learn how you can use digital badges to get TEFL\/TESOL jobs.<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n

What motivated you to start your own business?<\/h2>\n

I have always been a self-motivated person, ambitious and single-minded in pursuit of my dream. When living in Bangkok, I felt annoyed by the traffic jams and started thinking of my own business that would be online-related. Now it\u2019s been 6 years that I am working on it.<\/p>\n

Is the IDELTOnline course right for you? Browse TEFL online certification<\/a> options to find out which course you should take.<\/em><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a career English teacher and TEFL business owner, Evgenii is dedicated to his professional development and gaining more “recognition and appreciation” as a non-native speaker, which is what motivated him to take the Bridge IDELTOnline. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":8469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,6],"tags":[],"post-language":[],"popular_posts":[],"class_list":["post-8215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bridge-voices","category-professional-development","category-global-teachers"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Evgenii-Blog-Image.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Bridge","author_link":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/author\/bridgetefl\/"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41411,"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8215\/revisions\/41411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8215"},{"taxonomy":"post-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-language?post=8215"},{"taxonomy":"popular_posts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/popular_posts?post=8215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}