Peculiar Russian 3/4 class

[Edward M Dumanis]

On Tue, 4 Apr 1995, Harold D. Baker wrote:

> Dear SEELangers,
>         I have a rather peculiar class that I'm teaching this quarter
> (maybe it won't seem peculiar to all of you . . .). That is, I've been
> teaching the class for years now, but this quarter it's acquired a
> different character. The class is 3rd and 4th year Russian. We were force=
d
> to combine these two levels a few years ago by staffing cuts; the syllabi
> remain wholly independent, with different textbooks, different tests and =
so
> forth, but they meet at the same time and place and have the same teacher
> (me). The past year it's been very small, 3-5 students, but this quarter
> it's swollen to 7 due to an influx of native speakers (3). These are true
> native speakers, with some or all of their secondary education (in one ca=
se
> higher ed. as well) from Russia, who are taking this course largely to
> lighten their workload. Some maintain the polite fiction that they are
> brushing up their grammar or spelling, others don't bother. That is not t=
he
> issue: we've long recognized this phenomenon as a fact of our life. The
> thing is that I suddenly have a class that is almost 1/2 natives, and it
> seems to me I can teach the whole class in a different and better way,
> using them as a resource. More importantly, if I don't, there is a real
> danger that their cynicism and boredom will overpower the other students
> and destroy morale. So I'm asking for suggestions for a class project
> lasting one quarter which would answer the following desiderata:
> =80Involves reading, writing, speaking, listening
> =80Requires active participation of all group members regardless of abili=
ty;
> may assign special role to native speakers
> =80Involves authentic (Russian) cultural materials of interest both to
> natives and non-natives
> =80Requires individual research/exploration as well as active classroom
> discussion/collaboration
> =80Probably produces some final written product, preferably collaborative
>         Our program has good resources to support a variety of
> possibilities: we subscribe to daily television broadcasts from Russia,
> both news and entertainment broadcasts (the International Channel); there
> is an excellent computer lab (actually labs); I can program in HyperCard;
> the Library has extensive Russian resources, including popular periodical=
s;
> we have a huge inventory of Internet resources for Russian.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>         The "other aspects" of the curriculum are not a problem: I can
> compress our necessary textbook occupations to a small part of class time=
.
>         I hope you find this an interesting problem, and look forward to
> your (as always) fascinating suggestions and ideas. I will also be workin=
g
> hard on it . . . .
> Biff Baker
>=20
> Harold D. Baker
> Program in Russian
> University of California, Irvine
> Irvine, CA 92717 USA
> 1-714-824-6183/Fax 1-714-824-2379
>=20
My suggestion is:
let your native speakers browse on the Internet in the search of what
can be of interest to them, then adapt what they find to the level of the=
=20
rest of the group.  As a result, the whole group might have mutually=20
interesting discussion which will be the basis for their homework.

Sincerely,
Edward Dumanis <dumanis at acsu.buffalo.edu>
=20