Russian Lower Intermediate (P114) - Not offered in 2018/19
Summary
Level:
Lower Intermediate. You will have completed around 100-150 hours of tuition fairly recently or you have a reasonable foundation in the language at school level, possibly to 'O'/GCSE level or equivalent. You can deal with most common 'survival' situations confidently. You now want to start moving beyond merely practising simple exchanges during your holiday or work trip abroad, learning to cope in non-routine situations and contributing to conversations on topics of general interest.
Main Objectives:
The course will demand more of you by way of vocabulary learning and extend your understanding of the grammar of the language, e.g. by learning even more tenses.
Teaching:
1 x 2 hour class per week plus some independent learning.
Course Text
Let's go! Russian for adults. A course for beginners, Chernyshov, S.I; St. Petersburg: Zlatoust, 2009, ISBN: 978-5-86547-433-3
A copy can be purchased from the University Bookshop.
Course Description
We will practise communication skills in dialogues, role-plays, and problem-solving tasks. A variety of exercises will be carried out in class to make sure you understand and can use the language presented during the lesson. You will develop an understanding of Russian society and culture, reading various texts about famous Russians, Russian cities and festivals, listening and trying to understand songs, watching video clips, reading simple newspaper articles.
Homework will be set each week to help you to consolidate grammar and vocabulary learnt in class.
Syllabus
From Unit 10 of the text-book covers the following:
Topics
- Travel and holiday;
- transport;
- my home and town;
- making arrangements;
- weekly activities;
- using the phone, writing a letter;
- Russian cuisine, cooking, going to a restaurant;
- biography and birthdays.
Grammar
- Noun and adjective endings in all cases;
- uni/miltidirectional verbs of motion;
- introduction to prefixed verbs of motion;
- imperative;
- introduction to verb aspects (imperfective/perfective);
- comparative and superlative constructions.
Skills
- listening, speaking, reading and writing;
- We will also work on discussion skills development and expressing your views.