Golosa

[Koenraad Blansaer]

Dear SEELangers,

I'd like to react to some of the Internet correspondence about "Golosa 1".
We actually turned to "Golosa 1" as a kind of last resort when it turned
out only shortly before the start of the school year that the book we
usually use in the first year (a "Russkiy Yazyk" publication specifically
intended for Dutch speaking students) was out of print. I began working
with the book last November and at the time of writing we have reached the
fifth chapter. I devote about two to three two-hour classes to each
section. I do not use the lab manual/workbook because we have separate
phonetics and grammar courses that are quite elaborate and outpace both the
book and the lab manual. As the students are usually already familiar with
the grammar dealt with in "Golosa" by the time we get to a given chapter, I
pay little attention to the grammar sections. I mainly see "Golosa" as a
means of sharpening the students' listening and speaking skills and
allowing them to put into practice the grammatical knowledge they have
acquired earlier on.

I should point out that despite repeated telephone calls to our book dealer
in Amsterdam we have so far been unable to obtain the accompanying audio
tapes, which has proved to be something of a handicap in working with the
book. I've tried to work around this problem by taping self-made conversa-
tions that more or less correspond to those found in the book, but it would
be preferable to have the original tapes (perhaps someone out there can
help?).

One problem I've encountered in working with "Golosa" stems from the fact
that it is intended in the first place for English speaking students. The
English itself is no obstacle for our students (most of whom study English
anyway), but the vocabulary is not always relevant to them (especially the
rather abundant listing of American cities in the first chapters is rather
disturbing). While this is a problem confined to non-English users of the
book, I do feel the vocabulary in the book should be more extensive and
that there is a slight overemphasis on conversational Russian. In fact, I
feel obliged to provide our students extra reading material to expand their
vocabulary and improve their reading skills. Although the "Davayte pochi-
taem" sections give students a firsthand taste of written Russian in
everyday life, I think there is also a need for texts that are specifically
geared to first year students and serve as a stepping stone to the more
complex reading matter they are faced with in the following years. Why not
write the "Mezhdu prochim" sections in Russian, in a simplified way if
necessary? This would be a nice addition to the conversational Russian in
the "Davayte pogovorim" sections.

Having said that, "Golosa" is definitely a welcome change from the old-
fashioned Soviet-style manuals we have had to use for many years and
despite the shortcomings mentioned above it does enable first year students
to acquire the necessary basic speaking and listening skills.

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Koenraad Blansaer                                Home Address
Assistant Professor of Russian              Saturnusstraat 11
Dept. of Orientalistics and          B-2600 Antwerp - Belgium
Slavonic Studies               Voice & Fax: +32 (0)3 2711 638
University of Louvain         E-Mail: k.blans at kblans.eunet.be
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