Why students do not study Russian anymore

[Kristina Efimenko]

I think Paul Samsonov, of A&M Univ./Texas, had a good point about the current
pedagogy not supporting memorization of poetry for a foreign language class.
If good pedagogy supported some memorization and this became standard again
for teachers to expect that of their students, then students would accept it
as normal and be more accepting of this directive. Same for reading, if more
was required, then students would do it.

In regard to Why students aren't signing up for Russian any more, the problem
is not just because students are afraid of having to study more. I did a
modest study at a local Phoenix high school where the students have access to
more than the usual amount of foreign languages - I mean more than Spanish
and French -- they had available : Russian, Japanese, French, and of course
Spanish. One of the main reasons sited by students for why they did not take
Russian was that they thought it would be harder, but the main reason why
they chose the foreign language they did was #1) because they were more
familiar with the culture of that language, #2) the language they chose would
be more useful to them in a future job. On further interviewing various
students, the person who most influenced their decision that Russian would be
harder was their counselor. The person who most influenced their decision to
take a particular language was a friend or family member.

So, my conclusions for Russian teachers, or other community Russophiles,
would be : to increase awareness and appreciation of the richness of Russian
culture -- in schools by speaking to individual teachers and counselors, by
asking to visit English, Economics, History, Geography, and Government
classes to relate current happenings in Russia ( and related former Soviet
Union countries who still use Russian language) or take in cultural
enrichment regarding an author - photos, articles from Russian Life magazine,
articles from our newspaper, classical music tapes on loan, paintings,
slides, etc. to get the culture out there to the common people who do not
feel at all familiar with, nor any interest in, Russian culture. I, too, am
extremely frustrated with the lack of interest in our educational system
promoting the study of Russian language and culture. There is a short
covering of Russian history in most high school history courses, but
students' exposure to things Russian has to begin much sooner - in grade
school. When my daughter was in 6th grade in 1991, her textbooks were still
saying the the Soviet Union existed, even after the coup, and neither her
teacher nor the two other sixth grade teachers felt comfortable relating the
recent events. So, I presented lessons to three 6th grade classrooms about
the changes and the students labeled the names of the newly independent
countries formed after the breakup. I also gave them a quick introductory
Russian language lesson : the alphabet, some key phrases - greetings, and how
they were spelled in the cyrillic. Every opportunity, as my children were
growing up, they took peroshky. When I was a music appreciation volunteer, I
pointed out on the map particularly where Russia was ( and Ukraine, since
that is where my husband is from). Can you realize that when my husband's
cousin visited from Czech Republic, my daughter's teacher ( who is considered
one of the top teachers) repeatedly asked my husband's cousin, " Isn't the
Czeck Republic part of Russia - and didn't it used to be a part of Russia?"
She answered, "No." three times, to no avail. Old preconceptions die hard. I
big publicity campaign must be waged with the public about places in Eastern
Europe, the Balkins, and all areas of the former Soviet Union, places we take
for granted that people should be knowledgable about and even be interested
in, when in fact most do not have any knowledge of , or interest in. And
Russian professors at universities need to get better organized and be more
supportive of the few teachers who are still trying to teach Russian. At AZLA
conference ( in Arizona), I notice that there is consistently no mention of
Russian. There is even more involvement of the Chinese or Japanese languages
than there is of Russian. Professors seem to be lost in discussing literary
points of Russian literature than in any present day cultural happenings. Do
college campuses even take advantage of the influx of Russian speaking
immigrants to visit their classes and engage students learning the language
in meaningful dialogue? A lot of time is spent in college Russian classes
memorizing poetry and translating poetry. Doing some of this is good, I
believe, but some real conversation with real Russians would invigorate any
program. And college professors who "push" future student teachers of foreign
language to use the communicative approach almost exclusively and practicly
be afraid to get into grammar in any logically organized fashion is frowned
upon. Then when the high school students come to college to continue the
study of that language, finally at some stage later than the first year
course, students are finally given more grammar and too much memorization of
poetry. The two are not in agreement. I could go on and on.....

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