Orange is a long way from her native Estonia but new Kinross Wolaroi teacher Signe Ernist is feeling right at home.
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The CWD sat down with the linguistic master to find out how she's adapting to life in the Colour City and why she's passionate about Australian learning more languages.
CWD: "How are you finding Orange so far?"
Signe Ernist: "I love it, I feel like I've ended up in a a paradise. Everybody is so lovely, the school is amazing and the climate compared to Sydney is beautiful.
"The main street at night with all the lights is just so beautiful."
CWD: "What prompted you to move to Orange?"
SE: "It was a strange chain of events but we were looking to move away from Sydney. I then asked around my fellow French teachers and the next day someone said Kinross was looking for one.
"It was almost made for me. I didn't put anything in motion it just happened."
CWD: "When did you move to Australia?"
SE: "I moved in 2004 but I was visiting for a few years before that. I moved for a change. Before that I had been traveling the world. I was teaching in India and Egypt.
"I had visited parts of the world and Australia was pretty much the only part I hadn't been yet."
CWD: "Australians aren't great at learning a second language. Do you want to change that?"
SE: "When I first moved I had a masters degree in Estonia and when I got here I had to undertake a diploma of education of gain permission to teach as the pedological part of my degree wasn't recognised.
"As I completed that I had to do a prac and I learned that not many kids study languages. I had more questions than answers and one of my teachers said well if you are so interested then why don't you do a PHD to find out.
"So I did. In that sense, you guys not learning languages was good for me because it led me to do more research to motivate kids to continue past their compulsory language study."
CWD: "Finally, just how many languages do you speak?"
SE: "I speak five fluently and about 10 under torture. Fluently I speak English, French, Russian, Estonian and Finnish, which is very close to Estonian.
"Because Estonia is so small we all learn about three languages at school. I just love languages, I always have, that's my specialty."
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