Graduate classes in Russian (was Why no Cyrillic?)

Richard Robin rrobin at GWU.EDU
Sat Feb 7 16:59:20 UTC 2009


On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 5:59 PM, George Kalbouss <kalbouss at mac.com> wrote:
I remember as a graduate student in the 60's that most graduate courses in
Russian
literature, linguistics were taught in English, even when the professor's
native language
was Russian and he spoke with a visible accent  (the exception was NYU).
 Everyone in
the class was a grad student pursing an advanced degree in Russian
literature of
linguistics, and I could never figure this out.  This certainly wasn't
the case in French, Spanish and German.

*Comprehensive* discussion of scholarly topics such as literature and
linguistics requires ACTFL Superior, which requires about 1300-1500 hours of
face-to-face contact. That usually happens only after lots of classroom
study followed by a lengthy stay or stays in country - if ever. Graduate
students familiar with the topics can get away with Advanced proficiency
(the lit and linguistics become "hot-house specials"). Understanding the
gist and main details of a college lecture "short lectures on familiar
topics" is usually associated with the Advanced level. That's attainable
after academic study plus intensive U.S. experiences and/or a semester/year
in country. During the 1980s, as proficiency assessment was making its way
into academia, someone estimated (in print, if I'm not mistaken, but I can't
find the cite immediately) that a typical Harvard Russian major graduating
in the 1960s (without recourse to lots of in-country time) would have rated
Intermediate High. Most entering graduate students would have probably been
Intermediate Mid with isolated use of higher-level lexical items. That would
not have been enough to carry on an *unscripted* discussion of the issues at
hand.

Now, compare that to Spanish. To become a Superior speaker in Spanish a good
learner needs 400-600 hours of contact. In the 1960s that was doable within
an academic experience, especially given the prominence of locales that one
could spend summers, semesters, and academic years (junior year abroad).

In my college freshman year (1968), when I was majoring in Russian and
minoring in Spanish, I knew no Spanish majors who had not already spent at
least four months in country (some had spent years). At the same time, I
knew no Russian majors who *had *spent four months in country (the CIEE
semester program was only about to get underway).

Of course, the situation today is different. Extended stays in
Russian-speaking environments prior to entry into graduate school are now
the norm, not the exception.

-Rich Robin


-- 
Richard M. Robin, Ph.D.
Director Russian Language Program
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
202-994-7081
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Russkiy tekst v UTF-8

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