Slavic Languages and Societies Commons^™

Book Review: Practices That Work: Bringing Learners To Professional Proficiency In World Languages, Olena Chernishenko

Russian Language Journal

Practices That Work is an excellent resource for both new and experienced foreign-language instructors, as well as for foreign-language learners. The volume is a compilation of short, thematically organized articles written by numerous experts in the field of foreign-language teaching who share invaluable insights about bringing learners to high-level professional proficiency in world languages. While Practices That Work offers a plethora of effective techniques for instructors, it also provides deep understanding of the learning process, which will benefit the development of learner’s self-awareness and autonomy.

Book Review: Transformative Language Learning And Teaching, Benjamin Rifkin

Russian Language Journal

Leaver, Davidson, and Campbell’s Transformative Language Learning and Teachingis a groundbreaking volume on the theory and practice of transformative teaching in the language learning context. The volume consists of chapters on the transformative learning and teaching of world languages organized into seven thematic parts: theoretical framework, transformative learning and teaching applications in government programs, transformative language learning and teaching applications in university programs, transformative language learning and teaching programs in immersion programs, the learner, faculty development, and assessment. The volume also includes a comprehensive list of works cited that constitutes a tremendous resource for any scholar or practitioner interested …

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Russian Language Journal

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Empirically Determined Strategic Input And Gamification In Mastering Russian Word Forms, Laura A. Janda, Jan Ove Nikolai Almendingen, Linn Thea Kaldager Josefsen

Russian Language Journal

We propose two designs to gamify second language (L2) learning of Russian inflectional morphology: Treasure Hunt and Story Time. The goal of these designs is to focus learning on high-frequency word forms that are most strategic and effective for L2 acquisition in a way that stimulates engagement and builds lifelong learning skills.

Construxercise! Implementation Of A Construction-Based Approach To Language Pedagogy, Anna Endresen, Valentina Zhukova, Elena Bjørgve, Daria Demidova, Natalia Kalanova, Zoia Butenko, George Lonshakov, David Henrik Lavén

Russian Language Journal

Language is a tool for communication. The ability to speak, to engage in a meaningful conversation, and to comprehend the speech produced by native speakers is the main purpose of second language (L2) learning, and Russian is no exception. A recent survey of the current students and alumni of the Russian program at UiT The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) administered in December 2021 revealed that our students would like more training in practical speaking and writing skills as well as more focus on conversational Russian.

Book Review: Etazhi: Second Year Russian Language And Culture, Cori Anderson

Russian Language Journal

The options for second-year Russian textbooks have been very limited, despite a growing number of textbooks at the first-year level and more advanced levels. Этажи fills the need for a stand-alone textbook that can be used for students who have already reached Novice High- Intermediate Low proficiency. What sets Этажи apart is the focus on real-life communication and conversation, and the use of real-life stories, provided by both native speakers of Russian and advanced learners. These written and recorded stories fill the book with relatable content and relevant cultural information, covering topics from dating to holidays to the Russian cafeteria, …

Book Review: Russian: From Novice High To Intermediate, Iryna Kaplun

Russian Language Journal

Russian: From Novice High to Intermediate is a remarkable textbook for second- and third-year Russian language courses. It is primarily designed for learners who are already familiar with basic Russian morphology and phonetics and have a beginner’s-level vocabulary; it will help learners achieve intermediate proficiency in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. One notable feature of the book is the companion website, accessible without registration, which can be imported into your university’s Canvas system.

Book Review: Modern Russian Grammar In Use: A Systematic Reference And Practice Book, Evgeny Dengub

Russian Language Journal

Elena Minakova-Boblest’s Modern Russian Grammar in Use is a much-needed comprehensive reference grammar and workbook for students of Russian, which can be used in the classroom and by students who study the language on their own (the answer key is a welcome addition for the latter). The book is a good supplement to virtually any contemporary textbook and can also serve as a standalone reference and exercise book for beginning- or intermediate-level language students.

Online Appendix: Who Are(N’T) Our Students?, Dianna Murphy, Hadis Ghaedi

ScholarsArchive Data

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The document is an appendix to the article "Who Are(n’t) Our Students?" by Dianna Murphy, Hadis Ghaedi published in RLJ Vol. 71, No. 3 . It provides high-resolution images which, due to their large size, are not legible in the print edition.

Review: Acquiring The Major Speech Functions In Russian: For Intermediate And Advanced-Level Students, Olha Tytarenko

Russian Language Journal

Acquiring the Major Speech Functions in Russian is designed to help Russian learners build communicative skills related to major speech situations such as greetings, requests, invitations, expressing gratitude, and so on. The volume is built around various sets of scenarios from everyday life to help students understand and appreciate the cultural and social context of various speech situations and equips learners with the necessary vocabulary and background knowledge to participate effectively in a given speech act.

Review: A Reader’S Companion To Mikhail Bulgakov’S “The Master And Margarita, Daniel Brooks

Russian Language Journal

Although Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic The Master and Margarita has become an inevitable fixture of Russian literature survey courses, it can nevertheless present a challenge even for seasoned instructors. As the text repeatedly slips between locales, historical periods, and narrative voices, Bulgakov’s novel seems more and more like a world unto itself. In my experience, there always proves to be something in this world—rewritten Gospels, a moving romance, the gun-toting cat—that will draw undergraduates in. And yet, when a tight syllabus gives me but four classes to tackle the novel’s elaborate system of leitmotifs, allusions, and historical realia, I feel like …

The Contested Works Of The Bakhtin Circle: A Stylometric Investigation, Brittany Pheiffer Noble

Russian Language Journal

Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895–1975) emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century as one of the most important theorists of literature, language, and cultural theory in the West. The discovery of the thinker in the nearly immediate wake of his death dovetailed with late twentieth-century critiques of language, authorial authority, and questions around the ethics of reading and media consumption. Bakhtin’s biography fueled his popularity: his was a life largely lived on the margins of an oppressive regime, and he wrote prolifically while surviving famine, siege, exile, health problems, and an almost complete absence of professional recognition save for …

Translation In The Russian Language Classroom: Coming In From The Cold, Brian James Baer, Tatyana Bystrova-Mcintyre, Irina Dzero

Russian Language Journal

For the past several decades, translation and interpreting have been largely excluded from the communicative language classroom—and not without reason. In traditional foreign language classrooms, “literal” or close translation was often used as a comprehension check or as part of a vocabulary or grammar drill, divorced from real-world context. This in turn encouraged students (and, on some rare occasions, foreign language teachers) to view language proficiency—and, by extension, translation competence—as a kind of linguistic matching game.

Reading Russian For The Disciplines: Google Translate, Richard Robin

Russian Language Journal

For many graduate students in areas such as history, economics, sociology, security policy studies, and arms control, the Russian reading requirement represents a significant barrier in terms of required coursework or reading proficiency, since Advanced-level reading proficiency at a minimum is necessary for reading in these disciplines. The question is, must that barrier be maintained? In a time when online machine translation (MT) is available on smartphones, is requiring a demonstration of L2 reading proficiency as part of the path to an advanced degree any more meaningful than requiring that statisticians be able to add up a column of figures …

Towards Intelligent Correction Of Collocational Errors In Russian L2 Academic Texts In The Cat&Kittens Writing Support Platform, Aleksandr Klimov, Olesya Kisselev, Mikhail Kopotev

Russian Language Journal

The study of academic language is driven to a large extent by the need to teach second language (L2) writers about established practices and patterns found across different genres and registers common in academic written discourse. Over the span of the past few decades, the area of academic language research has been hugely influenced by two interconnected digital approaches: computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and computational linguistics, including corpus linguistics approaches and tools.

Building Bridges With Language And Culture In Russia (Fulbright-Hays Group Project Abroad): Focusing On Intercultural Sensitivity, Alla Kourova, Florin M. Mihai

Russian Language Journal

In our progressively globalized world, the need to build bridges between people of different languages and cultures has grown exponentially. The phrases globalization , global citizen, and increasingly interconnected world are frequently present in public discourse (Kulturel-Konak, Konak, and D’Allegro 2017). Educators can potentially play a core role in bridging linguistic and cultural gaps between people, groups, and institutions. Closing these gaps was the main goal of the Building Bridges with Language and Culture in Russia project. The project was funded by the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad (GPA) program, which aims to improve US intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural …

Review: Political Russian: An Intermediate Course In Russian Language For International Relations, National Security, And Socio-Economics, Maria Alley

Russian Language Journal

The newest, seventh edition of Political Russian continues to serve the needs of students specializing in international relations, Russian affairs, politics, economics, government, national security, and related fields who wish to improve functional proficiency in reading, listening and speaking at the intermediate and advanced levels. However, the book’s reach is much wider. Several features of this course, including those new to this edition, make it a great resource for Russian-language instructors teaching a variety of courses and proficiency levels.

Connecting Through Language And Culture Learning During The Covid-19 Pandemic: The University Of Wisconsin–Madison Russian Flagship Program, Karen Evans-Romaine, Dianna Murphy, Anna Tumarkin, Laura Marshall, Assel Almuratova

Russian Language Journal

Research on the experiences of U.S. college students with emergency remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of human interaction and relationships for students’ learning, their satisfaction with their academic coursework, and their overall mental health and well-being. Given the centrality of interaction in second language acquisition and teaching, theCOVID-19 emergency has revealed that instructional programs in languages are uniquely positioned among all academic disciplines as potential sites for human connection in emergency and non-emergency contexts alike. This article offers a case study of how one postsecondary Russian program, the UW-Madison Russian Flagship, leveraged existing affordances in the …

Student Engagement In A Remote Language Learning Environment: The Case Of Ukrainian, Olena Sivachenko, Alla Nedashkivska

Russian Language Journal

This paper explores student perceptions of engagement in remote first-year, second-year, and third-year Ukrainian as a foreign language courses at a postsecondary institution. It examines student engagement at five levels: behavioral, emotional, cognitive, agentic, and social. This exploration of engagement, using the case of Ukrainian, supports the view of engagement as a multidimensional concept in which the various levels are interconnected and influence one another. The article provides pedagogical advice that is relevant not only to the context of remote instruction.

From Blended Learning To Emergency Remote And Online Teaching: Successes, Challenges, And Prospects Of A Russian Language Program Before And During The Pandemic, Olga Klimova

Russian Language Journal

This paper reports on students’ perceptions of their learning experiences in this crisis-driven environment. It explores engagement at the behavioral, emotional, cognitive, agentic, and social levels. This exploration of the various levels of engagement adds to the view of engagement as a multidimensional concept whose various levels are often interconnected. They were complemented by an application of engagement facilitators and deterrents across the levels. This approach established categories that should be considered in a remote environment: interest; learning support; learner agency and autonomy; emotions; technology and external factors; social interaction; and social connection (see Table 1). The results have implications …

Language Gains In Intensive Synchronous Online And Face-To-Face Russian Immersion Programs: A Comparison, Jason Merrill, Evgeny Dengub, Dmitrii Pastushenkov

Russian Language Journal

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most domestic language programs had to transition quickly to teaching online, often as emergency remote teaching, and many likely will retain some online offerings after the health crisis. This study’s goal was to compare the language gains of students in two intensive Russian summer language programs: 2019 face-to-face immersion and 2020 intensive synchronous online. Testing data included the results of entrance and exit oral, writing, and lexico-grammatical tests from 125 students in the face-to-face program and 59 students in the online program. The analyses revealed comparable learning gains in the 2019 and 2020 programs for …

Make Me Talk: A Bichronous Russian Language Course For Beginners, Olga Garabrandt, Irina Six

Russian Language Journal

This article reports on a new bichronous (combination of synchronous and asynchronous) online Russian course at the University of Kansas that was offered for the first time in Fall 2020. The article explains the key course development principles that guided the choice of the course structure, the types of activities, and the style of instruction. The article reports on teaching and assessment practices that worked well in the context of this course and could possibly serve as models for those planning to offer asynchronous and bichronous language courses. Additionally, the article summarizes the main outcomes of implementing the new bichronous …

Teaching Russian To Visually Impaired Students During Covid-19: Technological Tools, Teaching Strategies, And Digital Materials, Giorgia Pomarolli

Russian Language Journal

With the transition of traditional programs to emergency remote teaching contexts due to the COVID-19 crisis, we have been faced with a challenge that primarily concerns access to instruction for all students. This unprecedented situation has reshaped the issue of inclusive education. This paper aims at furthering the debate on inclusive distance education in Russian language learning by presenting the experience of teaching Russian as a foreign language (FL) at an elementary level to a group of 20 Italian native learners, including some who are visually impaired (VI). The course took place in Autumn 2020 and was originally planned as …

Lessons From The Covid-19 Pandemic: Boosting Student Engagement, Anna Kolesnikova

Russian Language Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped education in previously unimaginable ways. The shift from traditional face-to-face settings to online challenged instructors to create new ways to maintain and even increase student engagement. Engagement lessons from the pandemic fall into four main categories: 1) keeping students on track with course progress; 2) course design approaches that increase engagement; 3) engagement through interactive techniques; and 4) emergency-specific techniques. Many of these ideas will be applicable to post-pandemic teaching.

Using Authentic Online Resources In Russian For Stem Coursework For Novice Through Superior Level Learners, Molly Thomasy Blasing

Russian Language Journal

This article makes a case for incorporating STEM content into Russian language courses at the Novice through Superior levels of proficiency. The author presents models of asynchronous learning activities based on authentic online resources developed for a Russian for STEM pilot course taught during the COVID-19 pandemic. These lessons can be employed in online or face-to-face courses to prepare students to speak, read, write, and understand the language of STEM fields in Russian.

Developing Russian Oral Skills In The Online Environment, Elena Doludenko

Russian Language Journal

The global pandemic due to COVID-19 forced classes to go into online or remote modes in a very short period of time. Instructors teaching languages, including Russian, had to adjust assignments and tasks to continue developing oral skills in the new environment. This paper describes various activities and techniques used in synchronous and asynchronous online Russian classes since March 2020. These activities ensured that L2 students continued practicing Russian in new modalities. In particular, this article discusses the benefits of individual and paired recordings, paired work in Breakout Rooms in Zoom, individual work on pronunciation, and video projects. These activities …

Assessment Design In Online Russian Language Courses: Lessons From Covid-19, Yuliana Gunn

Russian Language Journal

This article examines various tools, approaches, and strategies for conducting language assessments in an online environment for all language levels during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. To complement tools available through the learning management system, online assessments can be retooled to be more communicative and interactive tasks, and measure language gains across the three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive and presentational). This article argues for increasing transparency in online classrooms and provides insights into initial student receptiveness and preferences for these new online assessments through an examination of anonymous student survey results.

Memes: Learning, Bonding, And Emotional Support In Times Of Covid-19, Valentina Vinokurova

Russian Language Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic has created various challenges for language teachers. For instance, the online teaching/learning environment makes it difficult to create peer-to-peer relations in the classroom and to engage students in learning (in or outside of class). Furthermore, many students today have difficulties focusing on school assignments because they are emotionally affected by the pandemic. This paper proposes that memes can be part of the answer to these issues. Memes, a new internet genre, typically involve a witty juxtaposition of image and text that expresses their creators’ emotions about a widely relatable situation. This paper discusses a pedagogical innovation in …

Raise Your Hand: Online Language And Culture Instruction, Inclusivity, And Critical Pedagogy, Thomas Jesús Garza

Russian Language Journal

The strained pedagogies in the wake of the transition to virtual online delivery of instruction in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, while taxing some instructors’ and students’ patience, have also resulted in reimagined curricula and new opportunities for student engagement and participation in our language and culture courses. This essay presents a rationale for the creation of ecologies of equity and inclusion within online delivery of course content on platforms such as Zoom, including suggestions for creating Breakout Room tasks and activities that encourage critical engagement and dialogue among learners and facilitate the creation of “safe spaces” for open …

Hybrids 2.0: Forward To A New Normal In Post-Pandemic Language Teaching, William J. Comer, Lynne Debenedette

Russian Language Journal

This article reflects on possible ways of incorporating the practices and tools of pandemic-induced remote teaching into the post-pandemic face-to-face teaching of Russian. We posit that a large number of the tools and practices that face-to-face teachers adopted during the pandemic will continue to be useful and effective for accomplishing fundamental pedagogical imperatives such as curating learners’ access to input and providing opportunities for learners to interact with that input. Nevertheless, we also assert the benefits of synchronous face-to-face language instruction for building community and interaction. We explore ways of intentionally blending practices into new hybrid models of language instruction, …