This course is recommended for the students who have finished Russian Beginners 4 or students having some acquaintance with the language. The course is designed for cultural knowledge, pleasure, business, travel or everyday use. The course aims to build developed comprehension and communication skills in conversation, reading, listening and writing. The course also serves as an introduction to Russian society and Russian-speaking cultures.

DELIVERY MODE

• Face-to-Face

TEXTBOOK

• Anna Kudyma, Russian: From Novice High to Intermediate (Routledge 2021), ISBN: 9780367137137

COURSE OUTLINE

• Biography, interests, personal appearance and personal traits, likes and dislikes
• Family members, their relationships and family history; practice communicating situations on greeting, farewells, introductions, and asking for clarifications
• Expressing happiness, giving advice, expressing positive and negative attitudes, agreement and disagreement, offering support and encouragement
• Learning using first names and patronymics, addressing on ты and вы, shortened and diminutive first name forms
• Practice pronunciation of unstressed and stressed vowels, pronunciation of hushers (Ж, Ш, Ч, Щ); pronunciation of СЧ; the pronunciation of -ТЬСЯ and -ТСЯ
• Speaking and writing in complex sentences: the conjunctions потому́ что, та́к как, and кото́рый in the prepositional case; the conjunctions что, где, как, когда́, and кото́рый in the genitive case
• Learning grammatical structures of Russian words (roots, suffixes)
• Review of the prepositional case functions and endings for nouns, adjectives, and pronouns; the nominative case functions and endings for nouns and adjectives; the genitive case functions and endings for nouns, adjectives, and pronouns
• Practicing using the reflexive pronoun СЕБЯ́ oneself (myself, yourself, himself, herself, ourselves, themselves) and reflexive possessive pronoun СВОЙ (one’s own) in nominative and genitive cases
• Review of first- and second-conjugation verbs; present and past tenses of verbs; verbal expressions in past tense.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Greet and bid farewell appropriately; introduce themselves and others; share biographical details; express interests, likes, and dislikes; and ask questions about other people’s lives and interests.
2. Talk about friends, family members, and relationships by describing appearance, personality traits, shared activities, interests, and common discussion topics, using expanded and accurate vocabulary.
3. Formulate and answer questions about appearance, personality, family history, private life, dating, marriage, and interpersonal relationships with appropriate sensitivity and language.
4. Read and discuss love stories and relationship issues; give advice; and use language strategies to calm, reassure, and support others in emotionally charged situations.