songs and games in the classroom

[John Langran]

Dear colleagues

A couple of further queries for the adaptation of my Ruslan course for the
US market. I would be grateful if those teaching beginners Russian have time
to respond.

1.
Do you like using language games that involve students moving around the
classroom talking to each other in Russian? I have been encouraged to drop
these from my US edition, as your classrooms are perhaps more "rigid" than
ours in the UK. But I am not sure of this advice, and I want to check it.
Example of such a game for beginners in the first few lessons of a beginners
course.
They already know - Izvinite! Ya-  Vy - Da - Net, and a few other necessary
words.
- students choose a profession - either inzhener, muzikant or zhurnalist.
They don't tell anyone who they are.
- they then have to get up from their seats and regroup in 3 groups, all the
engineers together, etc, using Russian only. Teacher stays on hand to help
with vocab etc as needed.

2.
Will there be any resistance from teachers to the idea of fun songs for
learners using popular Russian tunes with new words? There is an example of
such a song to the tune of "Iz-za ostrova na strezhen" at
http://www.ruslan.co.uk/songs/Iz_aeroporta_v_centr.wmv - only low quality,
the song is being recorded properly next week. It has been suggested that
some teachers will see this as a mockery, but I think that the memorable
context is a good aid to learning. There are likely to be 4 or 5 such items
in the new book.

Thanks for any feedback

John Langran
www.ruslan.co.uk

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