More Than Just Language: Inside Bilingvi, Singapore’s Creative Russian Hub

The Bilingvi Russian Language Center for children and adults has been operating since 2018. Student age: from 10 months to 100 years old.

Russian language classes are taught by professional linguists/philologists who love and know how to work with children. “BeeKidsClub” and “Growing Together” (Растем вместе) are engaging early development and Russian language support classes for children aged 1-5. ART classes are built on immersion in the Russian language and self-expression! Philosophy, calligraphy, musical development, storytelling, TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem-Solving), mathematics, chess, and much more! A book club, masterclasses, and Russian language lessons for adults. Classes in English and Chinese for children.

Language camps during holidays – themed weeks when every day is a small discovery for the kids!

And you can also host an event, meeting, or birthday party in our cozy space.

Three branches for your convenience! 36 Armenian Street, #02-03, 406 Joo Chiat Place, #01-27, Sentosa, 31 Ocean Way, #02-01

Phone: +65 8338 3136 Email: hello@bilingvi.com www.bilingvi.com

– Katya, tell us, how did the idea to open the Bilingvi Russian language center in Singapore come about?

This isn’t a new story; the idea and the understanding of the need to open a modern Russian language center for children in Singapore appeared over 7 years ago, almost immediately after moving to Singapore. The opening of the school was motivated by two main ideas: to create another useful social project for my own children (I already had the successful Play with Mozart), and to create conditions for the support and development of the Russian language for children in Russian-speaking families.

And this school was opened, developed successfully for 3.5 years, but the format became outdated and required transformation. Since August 2021, we have been operating under the BILINGVI brand. More and more children who do not speak Russian began to come to us – now we teach Russian from scratch to both toddlers and teenagers. We also had a demand for Russian as a foreign language (RFL) lessons for adults. The old school could no longer meet this demand.

We changed the programs and reviewed the teaching staff. The best and most-loved teachers decided to stay with the new project, but we stopped looking for people simply based on who was locally available. Even during the difficult Covid times, we managed to bring a young, very creative Russianist from St. Petersburg to Singapore and hire a unique specialist in RFL with an academic degree. The BILINGVI school has a unique teaching staff, which favorably distinguishes this project.

– We know that classes at Bilingvi are very different from the usual, often boring, Russian lessons. Tell us, how do you structure your lessons?

The main thing for us is the child’s motivation and partnership with the parents. Parents and children must understand why they are coming to us; only then can we achieve our goal. In lessons, we start from the child’s interests and can teach grammar rules while cooking borscht, completing a quest, or painting a picture on the wall.

We create conditions that are very different from what children see in school. Most of our classes are held in the evenings and on weekends, and it’s important to us that children are comfortable, that classes are enjoyable. We do not enforce strict discipline and we always base our approach on the age-specific characteristics and temperament of our students. If they need to run around and stand on their heads, we have a format for that too. If they want to sit on the floor and look at the wall, then we will project all the important information onto the wall, sit with them, and relax while learning something new.

We have expanded the list of language subjects – now you can learn Russian both in Russian lessons and in culinary arts classes. These are also taught by linguists, drawing on the experience of the best language schools in the world. In all classes – whether it’s Russian lessons or applied arts – children learn to express themselves. After all, language is first and foremost a means of communication and interaction with different people. We have 2 wonderful artists working with the children, who are in love with their craft, where children expand their vocabulary and creative abilities.

Over 4 years, the school’s teachers have created unique Russian language programs:

• All topics covered in Russian language lessons in Russian schools are included.
• All tasks are selected taking into account the child’s language level and interests.
• The program is aimed at developing both written and oral speech, includes work on handwriting, and the development of reading literacy.

– Bilingvi can now be found in two areas of the city. The first center is in the River Valley area, loved by many expats, and the second is on Joo Chiat – a stylish quarter near East-Coast Park. Do the programs at these two branches differ?

Both branches offer all the basic Russian language programs. A new program for toddlers, “Grechka Club,” has opened at Joo Chiat – a playgroup in Russian for creative toddlers aged 1-5, running from 1 to 5 days a week. The program includes music, dancing, acting, drawing, and sculpting classes, as well as outdoor walks and monthly outings. There is also an acting workshop with a focus on rhetoric for children 5-8 years old and a radio theater for kids 9-13 years old.

– We often hear from our readers that children are thrilled with your camps, which you regularly organize during school holidays. Please tell us more about them.

Language camps are a special point of pride and a long-standing tradition at our school. We have never had a repeated program; every week is unique. Over the year, we run 22 themed weeks of camp – from ecology and urban planning to creating plasticine cartoons and Cosmonautics Day. Even if a theme is repeated, all the activities within it will be different.

How does a week go? It’s important to us that the children, who will spend a week or more together, get to know each other and feel like a team. Therefore, we start every day with games for introductions, bonding, and team-building. Next – we dive into the theme by completing quests, doing projects, creative workshops, and culinary classes – everything is integrated into the immersion of the week’s theme and building up the relevant vocabulary. As part of the camp, we regularly go on excursions with professional Russian-speaking guides to significant places in Singapore, introducing the kids to the city they live in from a historical and traditional perspective. The kids love active games; twice a week they go to a trampoline center or a large field where we hold relays and play.

The day always ends with a “svechka” (candle) – this is a very important part of the day, an established tradition in many camps. At this event, they can discuss topics that concern them, summarize the day, or share their impressions. The week usually ends with warm wishes for each other, bracelets or knots for remembrance, t-shirts decorated for one another, or small gifts.

– Is there anything at the Bilingvi center for adults?

We have created a literary club for adults. It has become very popular, and soon we will start holding meetings on the East Coast as well. You don’t need to prepare and read the work at home – we do it all together right at the meeting. Our club leader, a teacher of Russian language and literature, Anastasia Shcherbakova, selects a short piece: it could be a short story, a novella, a poem, or a significant excerpt from a novel. The most fascinating part is the discussion among participants during and after the reading. We ask questions, debate, and express opinions.

We have a specialist in teaching Russian from scratch, who has worked for many years with military translators, lawyers, and businesspeople using their own methodology. We are ready to offer a basic Russian as a Foreign Language course for daily communication, an express course for general competency, and even a course for businesspeople who don’t plan to learn Russian but are interested in the specifics of the Russian mentality. Knowing the cultural characteristics of Russian people will help them understand what motivates their actions and reactions and find the best way to cooperate with or manage Russian colleagues in international corporations.

We regularly hold creative masterclasses for adults (art therapy, Christmas wreaths, Chinese painting, art classes for amateurs and beginners) and are open to suggestions. If someone wants to share their talents with others, we can help organize the space and the group.