Each year, about a couple of thousand young people who have graduated from Russian-speaking upper secondary schools in Estonia enter Estonian universities. In Alma Mater, they generally have to acquire knowledge in the official language of Estonian. To facilitate their adaptation process, universities offer various possibilities for language training on their part – from free courses alongside everyday studies to intensive learning lasting for a year. A relatively new possibility is tandem learning, which was launched during the last spring semester at Tallinn University and which proved to be popular among Russian- as well as Estonian-speaking students.

When the Catherine’s College of Tallinn University invited students to participate in the language tandem programme at the beginning of the spring semester, the College was unprepared for such a great interest in this activity. The staff of the Catherine’s College targeting non-Estonian speaking students were very well aware that young people speaking Russian as their mother tongue and studying at the university seek opportunities to practise their Estonian in everyday situations – thus, finding participants for the first part of the Russian-Estonian language tandem would not be a problem. However, will Estonian students have sufficient interest in the Russian language? After Estonia regained its independence at the beginning of the 1990s, the popularity of Russian has constantly decreased among young people – the World opened to the West and it was and still is necessary to primarily have good skills in English. Problematic relationships between Estonians and Russians in the past also play a role here (the Soviet Union occupation of Estonia 1940-1991 – A.N). Nevertheless, the outcome exceeded initial expectations, as many people were surprisingly interested in learning Russian.

“Estonians explained their interest in the necessity of the Russian language, whereas students studying at all levels – Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees – expressed their interest in learning Russian,” said Olga Pastuhhova, Research Fellow and Methodologist of Bilingual Education at the Catherine’s College, in an interview given to the daily newspaper Eesti Päevaleht in May. “Students from other institutes of the university also participate in tandem learning, where one student whose mother tongue is Estonian and another student whose mother tongue is Russian equally practise both languages by talking to each other.” Estonian-speaking employees and graduates of the university also wanted to try the tandem method. Likewise, people from other educational institutions came to ask about the programme. The interest kept growing throughout the spring semester and in May, over 50 tandem pairs practised their language skills together. In the autumn semester of this year, tandem learning continued, more pairs joined and registration to tandem learning was taken to the Internet.

“For me, it is the only chance to speak in Russian,” said Nele Otto, a student of the Tallinn University, who together with Jevgenia Mateitsuk who is practising her Estonian, form a temperamental and energetic tandem relationship. They speak equally in Estonian and Russian by taking turns. They talk about their everyday life, studies, music, and go to the cinema together. At first, they only met on the university premises and the conversation largely focused on polite small-talk, but now the girls go out together, have lunch together, etc. Jevgenia admitted that the beginning was difficult, but each following day showed improvement when compared to the previous one. To ensure the smooth functioning of the language tandem, the Catherine’s College first organised a briefing where they also touched upon if, when, and how people should correct the language mistakes of their conversational partners. Participants were encouraged to ask for advice from language teachers.

However, the interviewed teachers who were working in language schools in Tallinn described that people from universities are not the only ones who have witnessed the growing interest of Estonians in the Russian language: in language schools, groups are fully booked, and free positions at Russian courses which are financed by the European Union and are free of charge for the learners are filled in just a few minutes.

In six Estonian universities in public law and in institutions of professional higher education, there are roughly four possibilities for the graduates of Russian-schools. There are specialities and courses where students start their studies in Russian, gradually transfer to Estonian, and graduate from the school in Estonian. This is possible, for example, at the Tallinn University of Technology and in some institutions of professional higher education. There are faculties, colleges of higher education institutions and specialities where it is possible to study in Russian until graduation – for instance, some specialities at the Tallinn University of Technology in the Eastern part of the Republic of Estonia (Ida-Virumaa), where the majority of the population is Russian-speaking. Most private institutions of higher education where the language of instruction is Russian do not require learning in Estonian at all, as they are not obligated to do so by law.

The University of Tartu uses a third possibility: new students whose mother tongue is Russian are invited to take a test in Estonian. Thereby, the university determines how these students would cope in an Estonian-speaking academic environment and, if necessary, students are offered possibilities for intensive learning towards meeting their language skills. “The number of the graduates from schools where the language of instruction is not Estonian is rather stable. Last year, there were 350 students who were admitted to the university and invited to take the Estonian language test,” said Ülle Hendrikson, the Specialist of the Organisation of Studies at the University of Tartu, this spring. “The volume of the intensive learning of Estonian depends on the test results and language training can be passed parallel to specialised studies.” Students focusing on intensive learning can suspend their standard period of study respectively by half a year or a year. However, it is also possible to learn Estonian next to specialised subjects as an optional subject throughout the whole period of study.

On the other hand, the Estonian University of Life Sciences can happily state that recently, no student from a Russian school has had to use the opportunity of learning Estonian for a year before starting with the subjects of his/her speciality. This is noticeable as, only in the last spring semester, the Estonian University of Life Sciences had 209 students (the population of Estonia is 1.5 million – A. N) whose native language is Russian. According to Anne Lüpsik, the Head of the Study Department, 5.3 per cent of the students of the University of Life Sciences come from Ida-Virumaa. “The Estonian skills among the graduates of Russian schools have improved so the requirement to prove one’s language skills has been left out from our rules for student admissions,” she said. “If students need help in their specialised studies, i.e. with Estonian terms, the teaching staff will provide assistance in this matter.”

Sometimes, courses in Estonian could also become mandatory. “If a student has been admitted to a state-commissioned study place, but his/her skills of the official language as the language of instruction do not meet the requirements set by the institution of higher education, the institution will enforce the student to learn the official language in a intensive learning programme,” explained Mart Laidmets, the Head of the Higher Education Department at the Ministry of Education and Research. The exact procedure for teaching the official language in higher education institutions has been established by a corresponding regulation of the Ministry of Education and Research of the Republic of Estonia. Young people graduating today from upper secondary schools where the language of instruction is Russian must all take a state examination in Estonian as a second language at the B2 level (the test result must be at least 80 points). This indicates language skills which enable the person to learn in Estonian at an institution of higher education.

According to the initial data of the last census, 1,340,000 people lived in Estonia as at 1 January 2010. Approximately 64% of these people are Estonians, about 21.9% Russians, around 3% Ukrainians, with all other nationalities forming the rest. Several of them, including Ukrainians, also use Russian in their everyday communication and their children mainly study in Russian schools. By 2011, studies in all Estonian upper secondary schools should take place in Estonian at least to the extent of 60 per cent. In the academic year of 2009/2010, there were 62 Russian-language upper secondary schools in Estonia. The growing trend is that Russian parents prefer to send their children to Estonian-speaking kindergartens and/or primary schools.