Verbs in Russian Stage One and Two

[Greg Thomson]

At 17:30 -0500 03-26-1999, J. Douglas Clayton wrote:

>Personally, I tell my students that there are in my class to do two things:
>*learn* the language, and *study* it. Learn because it's a useful skill and
>a horizon-opener, and study, because there is an intellectual challenge in
>understanding how the Russian language works, and in universities students
>should have be confronted with intellectual challenges. The objective (in
>my view) is to turn out philologists, i.e., people with an advanced
>linguistic culture, not simply people who can speak the language.
>Otherwise, I don't see how we can justify our presence in the university.
>If Swan and Thomson represent one of the two poles, I feel it is incumbent
>on me to help my students strike a balance between the acquisition of
>communicative skills and the study of Russian grammar (understood, of
>course, in a larger sense than simply learning morphological rules). If
>that's old-fashioned - so be it.

As a linguist and a Russian learner, I have no trouble with your two goals,
although I would wonder how often in undergraduate Russian courses grammar
is studied in the academic spirit that you talk about. I would think many
undergraduate learners might have a rather simple belief that someone
really knows "how Russian works", and might not enjoy having to grapple
with the strengths and weaknesses of competing hypotheses. I also
appreciated Ben Rifkin's clarification. His approach sounds similar to what
I've been exposed to here in Russia. In teaching grammar here at the lower
levels, many teachers seek ways to involve the learners in authentic,
personally relevant communication, related to topics or communicative
situations of immediate practical importance, but with a well-laid plan up
the teacher's sleeve for bringing in grammar points in a supportive rather
than dominating manner. Some of what I've seen here at the lower levels
seems to me to be somewhat in the spirit of Michael Long's idea of "Focus
on Form", though probably predating him. Of course there are also advanced
grammar courses here for philology majors, but not necessarily for foreign
engineering majors or foreign medical students, who must also learn Russian.

Regards,
Greg




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Greg Thomson, Ph.D. Candidate (gthomson at gpu.srv.ualberta.ca)
SIL/Thomson, Westpost P.O. Box 109, FIN 53101,
Lappeenranta, FINLAND
Phone: 7-812-246-35-48 (in St. Petersburg, Russia)