< Introduction to this Site
The materials on this site are intended for use in a 16-week accelerated Russian course. A Sample Course Outline is provided for the instructor. A Workbook with 16 weeks of exercises gets the student started using these materials. The materials are divided into the following categories:
The Learning Web Apps include live demonstrations, interactive learning tools, and helpful Youtube videos.
The Russian Alphabet lessons include charts, interactive online activities, videos, and written exercises. Students should learn the alphabet before the first class. For a quick introduction watch the video Learning the Russian Alphabet
Reading Assignments help the student to take his knowledge of the alphabet to the next level, and to learn to pronounce Russian words smoothly. Most reading assignments include an audio recording of the reading which the student can listen to in order to improve pronunciation and cadence. Start by watching the video Finger-Guided Reading.
The Dialogs are simple conversations for students to memorize. They represent situations they will encounter soon such as making a telephone call to deliver a message, buying food, or serving tea to a new friend. These memorized later serve as a framework on which the student builds.
Vocabulary Lists are of three types: 1) High-frequency word lists give the hundred or so words which make up half of ordinary speech. Learning them first greatly improves the student's understanding the for a moderate effort. 2) Topic-based lists prepare the student to converse with native speakers on topics people care about. Talking about topics such as food, family, and fishing is the route to friendships. Experience has shown that students have long-term success with the language only if they make friends with those who speak it. 3) Finally there are lists of tricky words with discussion of common misunderstandings and how to use them correctly.
In the Usage Advice section we help you to understand words and expressions correctly so that you will know how and when to use them.
Phrasebooks provide lists of useful phrases. Each phrasebook is tailored to a particular situation such as encouraging a new acquaintance to tell something about himself or conducting a Bible study class.
Grammar Articles each explain in detail some aspect of how to combine words to form understandable sentences.
Language Generators are charts which show the student how to form grammatically correct (and hence understandable) sentences by using templates and simple rules. To learn more about them, watch What is a Language Generator.
Items filed under Culture help the student to understand the shared experiences and ideas of Russian culture.
Each handout filed under one of the above categories is assigned an identification number so that students can find them quickly when the instructor refers to one of them by category and number.
The handouts are either in the public domain or licensed under the Creative Commons BY-SA license. This means that you have permission to download them, adapt them to your needs, and distribute as many copies as you like.