Curriculum

Foundation -

Introduces the cyrillic alphabet and basics of the spoken language. The primary focus of this level is on building a foundation in grammar, pronunciation, and conversational phrases.

• Topics - greetings, nationalities, clothing, food, and professions

• Objectives - cyrillic alphabet, phonetics, grammatical gender, nominative and prepositional cases, colors, nationalities, descriptive adjectives, numbers, and important basic phrases

High Beginner -

Builds upon the foundation begun in previous level and focuses on expanding students’ vocabularies and knowledge of phrases. Introduces basic verbs and how to conjugate them in the simple present and past tenses. Cursive is introduced and short written assignments will be given to improve writing skills. Students will also engage in simple conversational practice.

• Topics - routines, hobbies, likes & dislikes, age, family, wants & needs, transportation, travel, and weather

• Objectives - use of “to be” and “to have”, how to express likes and dislikes, days of the week, months, seasons, the accusative case, family vocabulary, use of verbs of motion, the genitive case, expressions of necessity and possibility, adverbs, weather vocabulary, and the future tense

Intermediate -

Introduces more foundational verbs and interrogative vocabulary/phrases. A stronger emphasis will be placed on speaking and building conversational skills from this level forward. Students will continue to expand their knowledge of written and spoken Russian, and special emphasis will be placed on distinguishing cases.

• Topics - questions, requests, commands, customs & habits, describing people, holidays, traditions, phone conversations, health, and going to the doctor

• Objectives - subjectless expressions, verbal aspect, how to make requests & commands, the dative case, the accusative animate, descriptive adjectives, physical & personal characteristics, the instrumental case, more verbs of motion, continuation of verbal aspect, phone greetings and phrases, holiday vocabulary, and health vocabulary

Advanced -

Students will refine their use of verb tenses, case usage, and continue to expand their vocabularies. Advanced reading materials such as short stories and news articles will be utilized to help students become more comfortable in their understanding of the written language. Video materials such as news clips and snippets from films will be used to help students become familiar with current topics and colloquial language.

• Topics - travel, making plans, cities, and countries

• Objectives - the genitive plural, case distinction, more descriptive adjectives, how to mix verb conjugations in narrative, and describing places

Russian Beginner-Low Intermediate Mixed Convo - (no textbook needed)

This class is conducted mostly in Russian and is designed for students who are not yet fully comfortable speaking the language but would like to practice and improve. We especially encourage students who feel stronger in their reading and writing to join this class to work on their speaking skills. The class has a strong oral component but also aims to help students better understand certain grammar points, build their vocabularies, and learn some idiomatic phrases and slang. Audio and written materials such as magazine articles, short stories, and video segments will be used to prompt conversations. Students’ interests are taken into account and grammar topics will be addressed as needed. All resources will be either provided or suggested by the instructor.

Russian High Intermediate-Advanced Mixed Convo - (no textbook needed)

This class is conducted entirely in Russian and is designed for students who are comfortable speaking the language but would like to practice their skills and continue to improve. We aim to help students increase the fluidity of their speech, expand their vocabularies, become more well-versed on various topics, refine their accents, learn idiomatic phrases and slang, etc. Students interested in joining this class should be proficient in high intermediate grammar at minimum and should be open to discussing a wide variety of topics with classmates. Audio and written materials such as magazine articles, novels, and short film segments will be used to prompt conversations. Students’ interests are taken into account and grammar topics will be addressed as needed. All resources will be either provided or suggested by the instructor.