How do you teach?

[Richard Robin]

"I was wondering whether any of you use in your language teaching new (and
older) high-tech stuff such as computer programs, Web sites set up
specifically to teach languages, films or news programs downloaded from the
Internet, or any other computer-related teaching devices."

Our fourth-year course is entirely web-based. For example, the first topic
was "Radio." Students got a list of all the major Russian radio stations on
the web. They listened to several, picked their favorite and prepared a
report to the class. Another topic was SMI. Students picked an article from
an Internet newspaper on a prominent current event and compared it to
coverage in an American publication. Other topics were historical events
(using the www.echo.msk.ru site), the U.S. elections, and the Russian
national anthem. Next semester, we will do movies, health, and vopros otsov
i detei.

Obviously, for this to work, all students must become comfortable not only
reading web pages in Cyrillic, but also typing and reading e-mail. Up until
this year, this was a major challenge, but the GW computer people have been
very helpful in making sure that every GW lab computer can read and write
Cyrillic both in html-forms and in in e-mail.

In first and second year, we use Golosa, which has a webpage
(www.gwu.edu/~golosa) with all sorts of additional links. We will be making
serious use of these links in the second semester of the intensive course.

Finally, getting back to fourth year, students type all their written work
in Russian, some for correction in grammar and style (private attachments)
and some for class consumption through a local listserv (no overt
correction). All questions to me outside of class ("...how would I say
so-and-so) come in the form of Russian e-mail.

I would like to get students to write e-mail to Russians in Russia. Some
do - on their own. But I haven't found an easy way to make this part of the
course.
------------------
Richard M. Robin <http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~rrobin>
rrobin at gwu.edu <mailto:rrobin at gwu.edu>
German and Slavic Department <http://www.gwu.edu/~slavic>
The George Washington University <http://www.gwu.edu>
Washington, DC 20052

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