SLI Program in Pittsburgh and Moscow for Russian Heritage Speakers and teachers of Russian

[David J Birnbaum]

SLI Program in Pittsburgh and Moscow for Russian Heritage Speakers and 
teachers of Russian

This program was offered for the first time in Summer 2005, and will 
continue through the summer of 2007 with funding from the Fulbright-Hays 
Group Projects Abroad Program. Most expenses for the Moscow portion of 
the program, including airfare to Moscow, will be covered by the terms 
of the grant. Up to eight students will be selected on a competitive basis.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: March 22, 2006

This SLI program is open to Russian heritage speakers on the junior or 
senior undergraduate level or the graduate level, who are interested 
either in K-12 or college teaching careers in foreign language or area 
studies, or in applying their international knowledge to other fields 
such as government, the professions or international development. The 
term “heritage speaker” or “heritage learner” refers to a person who has 
grown up in the U.S. in an informal Russian-language environment, 
usually at home, without attaining full Russian language proficiency or 
a native Russian’s complete educational background and cultural awareness.

In addition to graduate and undergraduate students, the SLI will 
actively recruit into this seminar at least one current or prospective 
middle or high school teacher of Russian each year. These teachers do 
not need to be heritage speakers, provided that the level of their 
spoken Russian language is sufficiently high to allow them to benefit 
from the seminar and to participate alongside the heritage speakers.

All seminar participants will receive intensive advanced Russian 
language training for five weeks at the University of Pittsburgh, 
immediately followed by five weeks at Russia’s most prestigious 
educational institution, Moscow State University. In each location, the 
seminar will provide both regular language instruction at the 
appropriate level (covering material typically presented in a 
fourth-year Russian course), as well as individualized tutoring and 
mentoring to address heritage speakers’ specific needs across the wide 
range of differences in literacy and fluency encountered among such 
speakers. The Moscow portion of the seminar will utilize local 
instructors, carefully designed cultural excursions, and other 
in-country resources to maximize the expansion of participants’ 
linguistic and cultural knowledge.

A unique feature of this program will be Individualized Cultural 
Excursions. In addition to group cultural excursions that will be 
organized for all classes in the Russian SLI to sites of general 
interest in Moscow (e.g., the Kremlin, Red Square, the Tretyakov 
Gallery), individualized cultural excursions will be arranged for the 
heritage learners and school teachers. These excursions will be designed 
to provide each student with exposure to the use of specialized Russian 
vocabulary in his/her primary field of academic interest, which may or 
may not be directly related to the student’s research project that each 
student will complete during the seminar. For example, a visit could be 
arranged to a museum dedicated to a specific Russian writer (for a 
student majoring in literature), artist or musician (for a fine arts or 
music major), or historical period (for a history major). In each case, 
a Russian language-only tour of the site will be provided by a local 
tour guide, and sites featuring written information for visitors in 
Russian only will be given first priority. The school teachers 
participating in the seminar will work with our director in Russia to 
select individual excursion sites where they can obtain cultural 
information to share with their students upon their return to the U.S. 
Our staff will assist all seminar participants in acquiring background 
information about their excursion sites in advance, so that this 
preparation will help them to attain the greatest possible gains in 
linguistic and cultural knowledge from their site visits.

Scholarships will be announced no later than April 1. For an application 
and further information visit: http://sli.slavic.pitt.edu/

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