language maintenance over the summer?

[John Schillinger]

	I agree with the "musical" approach.  Students really build  
vocabulary and pronunciation with music, and it's relatively painless.
	One of the most successful approaches I used (back in the day...) was  
in the last week of classes to give every student in my first year  
class a cassette tape recording with songs that were from various pop  
song collections, of the time,  such as the Soyuz/Союз series, with  
such titles as "Khochesh no molchish' "/"Хочешь но  
молчишь" and Marikhuana/ Марихуана (by Linda).  The  
songs had good repetition, catchy tunes and we translated them in  
class in the weeks prior to the end of the spring semester, so  
everyone was familiar with the content.  The students really did  
listen to them on their Walkmen over the summer, and it kept them  
involved in Russian.   Now with MP3 players and iPods, this would be  
even easier....


John Schillinger
Emeritus Prof. of Russian
American University

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