First-year Russian language textbook "Golosa"

[Kirsti S. Thomas]

>My advice-- take the time and let the students really learn the language.

>William Comer

I couldn't agree with you more!  In my undergraduate years, the Language Dept.
at my school decided to switch from a 4 semester to a 3 semester language
requirement.  Most of the students who had started on the 4 semester track
finished in 4 semesters-- except Russian.  After 2 semesters, my professor
decided to try to cram the final 2 semesters worth of Clark into 1 semester.
That's hard enough if you're studying a language similar to English, but for
Russian it was a disaster!  Indeed, I've spoken with instructors of
introductory Russian who have said that they would prefer to have an _extra_
semester so that the students could really learn the language well.  There's
only so much you can stuff into the human brain!

Kirsti S. Thomas
Russian Bibliographer
University of Wyoming
Laramie, WY
celyn at uwyo.edu