language maintenance over the summer?

[Emily Saunders]

It has been my experience that in order to get a student to actually  
(more than just one time) do anything over the summer that at all has  
a whiff of academia to it (regardless of any end of semester good  
intentions), it needs to be fun.  I, too, in my early Russian language  
studies years, bought those lovely simplified books with Russian on  
the one side and English on the other, and never got through more than  
one, maybe two pages of it.  Why?  Because it was hard and frustrating  
and because honestly I wasn't too worried about finding out how the  
stories ended.  And, I suppose, heresy of heresies, because I'm not a  
big fan of Chekhov and those books seem crammed full of his stuff with  
a few short stories by Gogol and Tolstoy thrown in for good measure.   
19th century literature, even simplified, and 1st year ability just  
make for a little too much hard work to be a fun afternoon's  
exercise.  Unless it has been assigned as homework, the likelihood  
that the student will actually do it is fairly slim.

In the rather unsubtle course I took on using the communicative  
approach a few years back it was bashed into our heads that students  
need exposure, exposure, exposure to the language -- hopefully mostly  
comprehensible inputs, but in general exposure -- before being asked  
to actively produce.  What better exposure than listening to music or  
watching a movie with English language subtitles.  Music in particular  
fits in with daily life in a way that no other activity does.  You can  
put a CD on in the car or while you're doing the dishes.  If you hear  
the same innocuous pop song over and over and over again, phrases like  
from the, may ye all forgive me, Kirkorov "wonder" hit:  "Ty moja  
ban'ka, ya tvoj ban'sh'ik," will eventually sink in.  And the best  
part is that you weren't even noticing it as it happened, and because  
it is music (and not an audio book) you do not have to understand  
every single word in order to enjoy it.  There's a Thompson Twins  
single from the '80's that still baffles me -- "Hold me now, hold me  
in your lovin' arms" and then "warm my heart"? "one fine hour"? "wan  
tripe fart"?  Still can't really guess at it, but that didn't keep me  
from listening to it growing up.  And with listening to music you get  
a two fer:  students get more exposure to the target language AND some  
acquaintance with a bit of low-brow Russian pop-culture, which will  
buy them some social currency when they go over for an exchange and  
get to mix with people their own age.

At any rate, I should say that from my own personal experience  
studying Russian in the late '80's early '90's, listening to Akvarium,  
Kino, and Mashina Vremeni was invaluable to me in keeping up my  
Russian over summers and then later in bonding with Russian roommates  
when I went on an ACC exchange.  So, while I guess I am taking a wee  
bit of umbrage at the notion that suggesting students listen to music  
and watch movies (WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES) is at all  
"counterproductive," in general I mean these suggestions to be  
helpful.  They were methods that worked well for me.

That being said, I'd be interested in any other suggestions that have  
worked well for others.  I will be teaching a community ed beginning  
Russian class this spring, and have been putting together a few "what  
you can do outside of class" recommendations since we'll be meeting  
only once a week.  Specific URLs or book titles are extremely welcome.

Regards,

Emily Saunders

On Apr 5, 2008, at 1:01 PM, Susan Bauckus wrote:

> Audio books, radio, movies, and all those authentic materials are  
> enriching
> and fun, but students who've had only one year of study and who are  
> willing
> to pursue these activities probably don't need to have it suggested  
> to them
> because they are likely to be very ambitious to take on such an  
> enormous
> challenge. For some students, including very good ones, it's  
> daunting and I
> wonder if it may be counterproductive. A challenge for us is to  
> figure out
> how to help beginning students when they want to work on maintenance  
> by
> themselves. I don't know the answer to that question and doubt  
> there's a
> single answer, but I'm not convinced that telling 1st year students  
> to do
> the same thing that advanced students would do is much of an answer  
> either.
>
> Or is it? Has anyone had experience with students who have followed
> suggestions made on this thread or elsewhere, and what has happened? I
> would love to know more about this.
> Thanks,
> Susi
>
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