Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Slavic Languages and Societies Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Discipline
Institution
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 301 - 330 of 1178

Full-Text Articles in Slavic Languages and Societies

Towards Intelligent Correction Of Collocational Errors In Russian L2 Academic Texts In The Cat&Kittens Writing Support Platform, Aleksandr Klimov, Olesya Kisselev, Mikhail Kopotev Jan 2021

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.


Reading Russian For The Disciplines: Google Translate, Richard Robin Jan 2021

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 …


The Contested Works Of The Bakhtin Circle: A Stylometric Investigation, Brittany Pheiffer Noble Jan 2021

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 …


Introduction To The Special Issue: Emergency Remote Teaching, Online Instruction, And The Community: Lessons From The Covid-19 Crisis In Language Education, Liudmila Klimanova, Jason Merrill, Shannon Donnally Spasova Jan 2021

Introduction To The Special Issue: Emergency Remote Teaching, Online Instruction, And The Community: Lessons From The Covid-19 Crisis In Language Education, Liudmila Klimanova, Jason Merrill, Shannon Donnally Spasova

Russian Language Journal

The COVID-19 crisis took all of us by surprise. Universities and schools, in unprecedented fashion, quickly began to move instruction online. In some universities, the switch to online instruction coincided with spring breaks, allowing instructors a brief period for hurried preparation, whereas other colleagues had only a few hours’ warning. In any case, few educators had previous experience with online instruction, so most were suddenly asked to teach in a completely new way. Despite these new challenges and the isolation necessitated by COVID-19, the language teaching community, in addition to adapting or creating courses for online delivery, was quick to …


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 Jan 2021

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 Jan 2021

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 Jan 2021

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 Jan 2021

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 …


Service-Provider Virtual Exchange As A Viable Alternative To Face-To-Face Speaking Practice: Data From Second- And Third-Year Russian Learners, Liudmila Klimanova, Valentina Vinokurova Jan 2021

Service-Provider Virtual Exchange As A Viable Alternative To Face-To-Face Speaking Practice: Data From Second- And Third-Year Russian Learners, Liudmila Klimanova, Valentina Vinokurova

Russian Language Journal

In the context of emergency remote language teaching during the pandemic, the biggest challenge for instructors has been to continue providing learners with opportunities to practice speaking and comprehension skills. Service provider virtual exchange (SPVE) platforms, such as Conversifi, Boomalang, TalkAbroad, iTalki, and LinguaMeeting have the potential to enrich the online learning experience by offering paid videoconferencing sessions with native-speaking language coaches at the students’ convenience. Research shows that regular videoconferencing with native-speaking peers may improve speaking ability (Saito and Akiyama 2017) and foster the development of intercultural competence (Tecedor and Vasseur 2020). This paper will discuss a pilot implementation …


Teaching Russian To Visually Impaired Students During Covid-19: Technological Tools, Teaching Strategies, And Digital Materials, Giorgia Pomarolli Jan 2021

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 Jan 2021

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 Jan 2021

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 Jan 2021

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 Jan 2021

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 Jan 2021

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 Jan 2021

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 Jan 2021

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, …


Русский Ковидный: Новые Языковые Явления Глобальной Пандемии, Елена Шмелева Jan 2021

Русский Ковидный: Новые Языковые Явления Глобальной Пандемии, Елена Шмелева

Russian Language Journal

Я зык отражает все значимые события, происходящие в обществе, поэтому не удивительно, что так изменившая в 2020 году жизнь множества людей пандемия COVID-19 не могла не найти отражение в языке. Сложился новый глобальный дискурс коронавирусной эпохи – не случайно в разных странах и разных языках, где выбирают слова года, победителями в 2020 году стали такие слова, как коронавирус, маски, локдаун, социальное дистанцирование и др. В статье мы кратко охарактеризуем основные особенности «русского ковидного», обращая особое внимание на новые языковые явления – изменения в лексике (появление новых слов и выражений, рост частотности редких слов, переход терминов в разряд общеупотребительной лексики), новые …


Afterword: Looking To The Future After The Pandemic, Cynthia L. Martin Jan 2021

Afterword: Looking To The Future After The Pandemic, Cynthia L. Martin

Russian Language Journal

1. Introduction At the time of publication of this special issue of Russian Language Journal, most language programs will have been teaching remotely or in a hybrid format for more than a year. This volume is a testament to the collective effort of administrators and instructors determined not to lose sight of the opportunities to learn from the pandemic and the emergency transition to remote learning. Although students are not represented here as authors, they contributed to these efforts, and hence they figure prominently in every article of the volume. Initial expectations for learning outcomes for them for online teaching …


Full Issue Jan 2021

Full Issue

Russian Language Journal

No abstract provided.


Diversity, Equity, Access, And Inclusion: Lessons For The Russian Language Classroom, Colleen Lucey Jan 2021

Diversity, Equity, Access, And Inclusion: Lessons For The Russian Language Classroom, Colleen Lucey

Russian Language Journal

The current special issue tackles some of the most difficult pedagogical questions facing Russian language instructors today. As the articles illustrate, there is a growing awareness of the possibilities of critical pedagogy to dismantle existing hierarchies and to create inclusive spaces for learners. The authors included in this special issue provide us with what the field has long needed yet direly lacked: scholarship that offers both theoretical and practical guidance to integrate diversity, equity, access, and inclusion (DEAI) in curricula and study abroad programming. A number of the authors turn, rightfully so, to existing research by foreign-language specialists who have …


Who Are(N’T) Our Students? The Gender And Ethnoracial Distribution Of U.S. Bachelor’S Degrees In Russian Language And Literature Over Twenty Years, From 1999–2000 To 2018–2019, Dianna Murphy, Hadis Ghaedi Jan 2021

Who Are(N’T) Our Students? The Gender And Ethnoracial Distribution Of U.S. Bachelor’S Degrees In Russian Language And Literature Over Twenty Years, From 1999–2000 To 2018–2019, Dianna Murphy, Hadis Ghaedi

Russian Language Journal

This article is a report on the gender and race or ethnicity of students who earned bachelor’s degrees in Russian language and literature in the United States over a twenty-year period, from 1999–2000 to 2018–2019, as either a first or second major (N = 9,161). This study complements national data available through organizations such as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which, through the Humanities Indicators project (http://www.humanitiesindicators.org), publishes information on the gender and ethnoracial distribution of bachelor’s degrees in languages other than English (LOTEs) together but not for individual languages (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, n.d.). This …


Here, There, And Elsewhere: Reimagining Russian Language And Culture Course Syllabi For Social Justice, Thomas Jesús Garza Jan 2021

Here, There, And Elsewhere: Reimagining Russian Language And Culture Course Syllabi For Social Justice, Thomas Jesús Garza

Russian Language Journal

The past two decades have witnessed enrollments in American colleges and universities for U.S. residents aged 18 to 24 increase from 35 percent in 2000 to 41 percent in 2018. Within this demographic, those identifying in census data as Hispanic/Latinx increased during the same period from 22 to 36 percent, as Black 31 to 37 percent, as Asian 56 to 59 percent, as Indigenous/Native American 16 to 24 percent, and as bi-or multiracial 38 to 44 percent (Hussar et al. 2020, 125). As the student population of higher education in the United States begins to reflect the national demographic portrait …


Rectifying Wikipedia Racial Bias In A Russian Language Classroom, Veronika Trotter, Svitlana Melnyk Jan 2021

Rectifying Wikipedia Racial Bias In A Russian Language Classroom, Veronika Trotter, Svitlana Melnyk

Russian Language Journal

Over the last decade, minority representation has emerged as a subject of critical self-reflection in the field of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (SEEES), prompting discussions that have centered on both the limited participation of minority populations within the community of SEEES scholars and students and the relative lack of attention that minority communities receive in SEEES teaching and research. Efforts to grapple with both issues became more urgent in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and the massive protests for racial justice throughout the United States and beyond. Major centers for SEEES teaching and research have organized well-attended …


Implementing Inclusive Secondary Russian Language Exchange Programs, Anna Stewart, Rebecca Berman, Emily Olmstead, Ashlynn Cobb, Emily Matts Henry Jan 2021

Implementing Inclusive Secondary Russian Language Exchange Programs, Anna Stewart, Rebecca Berman, Emily Olmstead, Ashlynn Cobb, Emily Matts Henry

Russian Language Journal

This discussion is a case study of the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) program’s overseas and virtual Russian language offerings. The study also provides considerations and examples for embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into the program design. Special attention is given to identifying Russian language opportunities for American high school students, expanding accessibility, centering program materials on inclusion, and embedding perspectives of the robust regional diversity within the Russian-speaking world into the NSLI-Y program. While the NSLI-Y program partners with many organizations in various locations, examples provided here focus on NSLI-Y programs implemented by American Councils for International …


From Error Annotation To Quantitative Analysis: Patterns In Russian Language Learning, Irina Kor Chahine, Ekaterina Uetova Jan 2021

From Error Annotation To Quantitative Analysis: Patterns In Russian Language Learning, Irina Kor Chahine, Ekaterina Uetova

Russian Language Journal

Although learner corpus research has been progressively growing into an independent branch of corpus linguistics, the learner corpus cannot yet fully benefit from corpus analysis methods. This is due to several technical obstacles involving data collection, error annotation, and finally, data processing. When it comes to data collection, compared to corpus linguistics, learner corpus is biased because some of the learner corpora are still collected manually: Optical character recognition (OCR) is not yet sophisticated enough to transform a student’s handwritten copy to a digitized text. This fact significantly slows the collection of learner corpora. Furthermore, typed students’ texts present another …


Review: Llc (Language, Literature, Culture) Commons: Open Resources For Online Teaching Slavic, Jennifer Bown Jan 2021

Review: Llc (Language, Literature, Culture) Commons: Open Resources For Online Teaching Slavic, Jennifer Bown

Russian Language Journal

The web resource LLC (Language, Literature, Culture) Commons: Open Resources for Online Teaching Slavic, created by Shannon Donnally Spasova and Liudmila Klimanova, allows instructors to share quality online materials that can endure over time. LLC Commons organizes a set of online Russian language modules developed primarily by the authors. All of the materials on the website are licensed under a Creative Commons license, allowing instructors to revise, reuse, and redistribute the lessons as long as the authors of the lesson are given credit.


Review: Da!: A Practical Guide To Russian Grammar, Erik Houle Jan 2021

Review: Da!: A Practical Guide To Russian Grammar, Erik Houle

Russian Language Journal

The Russian contribution to the Routledge Concise Grammars series is Da!: A Practical Guide to Russian Grammar by Tatiana Filosova. Different from the reference grammars more-advanced students and scholars of Russian may turn to, this book’s intended audience is the less-experienced language learner. Those familiar with the first edition know that within each of the book’s thirty-one chapters, the author suggests the relevance of each chapter’s content according to three levels of proficiency: elementary (referred to as level one), lower intermediate (level two), and upper intermediate (level three). Each level is given a description based on approximate equivalents with and …


Review: Russian In Plain English: A Very Basic Russian Starter For Complete Beginners, Veta Chitnev Jan 2021

Review: Russian In Plain English: A Very Basic Russian Starter For Complete Beginners, Veta Chitnev

Russian Language Journal

Natalia Parker’s Russian in Plain English: A Very Basic Russian Starter for Complete Beginners is designed for beginning students and independent learners who are not familiar with the Cyrillic alphabet. The textbook’s primary aim is to help students develop skills in reading aloud in Russian with correct pronunciation. The textbook is divided into ten units. Each unit centers on particular letters and sounds rather than on a specific theme. Every unit includes an objective (with the title “What’s the Plan”), information on Russian letters and the sounds they denote, reading exercises, speaking activities that can be used individually or in …


Review: “The Nose”: A Stylistic And Critical Companion To Nikolai Gogol’S Story, Sara Jo Powell Jan 2021

Review: “The Nose”: A Stylistic And Critical Companion To Nikolai Gogol’S Story, Sara Jo Powell

Russian Language Journal

Ksana Blank’s companion to Gogol’s “The Nose” is an excellent new resource for students of Russian language and literature. The book consists of two sections: the first, a series of annotations to the story’s text, and the second, several short essays on a wide range of related topics. Finally, readers are provided with a carefully selected bibliography of secondary sources, which will be particularly valuable for those new to Gogol research and criticism.