RUSS UN3101

I got better in applying Russian motion verbs and the study verbs.

Russian grammar, new sentence constructions, and more vocabulary.

I learned how to speak Russian with more fluency and comfort. I learned vocabulary related to school and work and advanced grammatical constructions in which to express myself more clearly.

It's hard to evaluate what I learned. Many elements of the course felt sporadic or disjointed. In terms of grammar, I felt like I learned I have poor grammar, but wasn't given clear directio on how to get better. Though I am not the best in this subject, I tended to leverage youtube videos more than notes we took in the class. Similarly, I felt as though there wasn't enough speaking in the course. Language is a living thing. It's best practiced when students speak and engage with the material. I also don't think the homework or projects gave students the kind of creative freedoms which enables language learning. At times, things felt incongruent. On other occasions things felt very fluid and synched up. The lacking symbiosis of time, theme, and expectations really hampered my ability to get better at the language in the way I wanted.

- It's likely not in budget, but break apart the grammar and the speaking.

In addition, try to maximize use of time. Though tangents can help students learn specific things, we only have 1 hour and fifteen minutes in a completely Russian- speaking environment. I would prefer to maximize that time with the subject material.

Try to make the homework less repetitive with writing and more about learning the scaffolding of the language structure. We need to learn how verbs are conjugated and what words mean what things, but that can be accomplished outside of rote written exercises.

Delegate more responsibility to your stronger swimmers who you know can help those not as good.

Try to allow for students to lead more of the classes. Allowing students to give presentations back to back to back can be tiresome and not as effective. If each student were to have one class per semester that they partially taught or lead, I think it would significantly help their overall participation. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2021 Course: RUSSUN3101_001_2021_3-THIRD-YEARRUSSIANI : RUSSUN3101_001_2021_3 - THIRD-YEAR RUSSIAN I Instructor: Tatiana Mikhailova

I gained so much more comfort with conversation as well as going more in depth on the theme of discussing school and higher education.