Russian 2204: Course Description

The course description below is identical to the one for the first half of this course, Russian 2203, including the assignments that ask you to record very short video clips and send them (or links to them) to the teacher. (You may use Zoom or any other tools for these recordings.)

Textbook:
Intermediate Russian: 12 Chairs by Slava Paperno, Alexander Nakhimovsky, Alice Nakhimovsky, and Richard L. Leed, Slavica Publishers. (Bookstores under Russian 2203.)

The subtitle of the textbook refers to a tremendously popular book written in the early Soviet years and best defined as a picaresque novel. The readings and the accompanying film present an abbreviated version of this classic tale, full of satire and adventure.

Audio recordings:
RIT-1, RIT-2 (texts in each Lesson in the book); these recordings are linked to the Syllabus so you can listen online.

Multimedia

Computer exercises
"Intermediate Russian Exercises" online at the COLLT site (click COLLT under On-line course materials). These exercises will help you prepare for the Verb classes (explained below). See also the COLLT FAQ.

Russian Web sites
Web pages in Russian, linked to the Syllabus.

Dictionary:
Any good Russian-English and English-Russian dictionary, e.g. by Kenneth Katzner, published by John Wiley and Sons (Bookstores under Russian 2203). Also, The Russian Dictionary Tree on our Web site under On-line course materials.

Recording Video:
Some of the assignments (below) ask you to work with a classmate and make a video recording of a dialog written by you and your partner (not necessarily the same one throughout the semester). You may use the recording feature in Zoom (see Zoom under On-line course materials) or any other method and send your recording or a link to it to the teacher by email. To avoid recording language mistakes, please follow these steps:

  1. Compose the text of your dialog and email it to your teacher. The earlier you send it, the sooner you will receive corrections, but in any case send it before 10 pm on the day you want to receive feedback.
  2. When you receive a corrected version, analyze your mistakes.
  3. Use the corrected text to make the recording and send it to your teacher.

Tests:
One midterm and a final examination.

Grading and attendance:
About three quarters of your grade will be based on your performance in class and quality of your homework. One quarter of your grade depends on the final exam. Missing more than four classes without a good reason will affect your grade. If you do have to miss a class, send an email to your teacher, preferably in advance. When you recover, be sure to ask your teachers for help catching up. We'll always be happy to help.

Course structure:
The textbook has eighteen Lessons. Nine Lessons are covered in Russian 2203 and nine in Russian 2204, in the spring. Each Lesson is typically covered in one week, or four classes:

The course includes a few review weeks, when the most recent Lessons are reviewed, and additional reading classes are taught (mostly using contemporary materials from Russian Web sites).

See Rooms and times for meeting times and places. See Syllabus for specific assignments for each class. The rest of this Course Description tells you how to do your homework and what to expect in class.

Assignment for the Text class:

  1. Read the Text once without consulting the dictionary at the end of the book, i.e. consult only the Text Comments and the little Text Glossary printed immediately after the Text. At this first reading, you will only scan the Text and try to understand its general contents. As you read, the stress marks on the key words in the Text indicate that these words are included in the little Text Glossary.
  2. Listen to the recording of the Text online. Note and mark stress on all unfamiliar words in the Text. In class you will be asked to read aloud parts of the Text. You will see links to the recordings in the Syllabus.
  3. Read the Text again, carefully, using the dictionary at the back of the book. You will not be expected to use the entire Text vocabulary in your speech, but you should know what every word means.
  4. Prepare Text Exercises 1 and 2. You are not required to write anything for the Text class.
  5. Be ready to act out short scenes from the text. Text Exercise 3 may be helpful when preparing for this.

Assignment for the Mini-Video class

  1. Watch the «6 кадров» mini-videos assigned for the day (see the links in the Syllabus or use the link under On-line course materials). Make sure you understand every word; consult the transcript and glossary for the words that are hard to hear. Look up other unfamiliar words in a dictionary. Have the transcript in class in front of you. Type an English translation of the complete transcript and submit it using the homework submission box below the transcript.
  2. Make sure you can read aloud the dialog imitating the actors' intonation.
  3. Meet with a classmate on Zoom. Rehearse and when ready, record the scene, perhaps somewhat modified if you wish, from one of the assigned mini-videos. See Recording Video, above, for directions. In class, you will be asked to discuss these scenes and act out improvisations based on them.

Assignment for the Film class:

The 12 Chairs multimedia is a Cornell-only resource available from http://lexiconbridge.com/cloud. Create an account with a cornel.edu email address, and you will be automatically subscribed to all titles. If you do not have access to a computer, use the ones in the Language Resource Center in Stimson Hall when it is open. You will watch the movie on the computer screen. On the same screen, you will see a window with various notes on the episode (summaries, transcripts, and descriptions). Every word in the notes has an English gloss: just click the word. Some words and phrases are linked to still images or short video clips. If you need help in using the site, read its on-screen Help (click the question mark button) or ask your teachers for a demonstration.

For the film work, the class is divided into two groups. Each student in the class should watch the entire assignment. In addition, each group is assigned a few scenes for more detailed study. See Syllabus for details.

When the Syllabus says "watch and understand..." you should watch the assignment a few times and try to understand as much dialog as you can. Consult the notes on the screen. If some of the dialog is difficult to understand, consult the on-screen transcript. Be prepared to answer questions about the entire assignment.

Then watch again the individual episodes that are shown in the syllabus as your group's assignment for "detailed study." Re-read the notes. Memorize as much of the dialog and the notes as you can. Be prepared to report on the episodes in class. Each scene's Summary will help you to report on the events. Each scene's Description will help you to report on the characters and objects. The stage remarks in the summaries and transcripts will help you to report on specific actions. Be prepared to answer other students' questions about the episode(s). You may also be asked to act out your scenes.

Meet with a classmate on Zoom and record a dialog or a story improvised on the basis of the episode you watched. See Recording Video, above, for directions. The syllabus includes one or two questions for each scene assigned for detailed study; you can use these questions to guide your own creativity. Make sure you do not use any language that might be unfamiliar to your classmates.

For each film class, prepare 2-3 questions on the assigned episodes. In class, your questions will be answered by your classmates as part of the discussion.

Some days are indicated in the Syllabus as review classes. For these days, you should work in pairs. With your partner, watch the entire episode(s) again. Make up your own skits (one or two short ones) along the lines of any scene(s) in the film. Memorize your dialog and be prepared to perform it in class. If you cannot find a partner, use a puppet or play both roles.

Assignment for the Verb class:

The purpose of this class is to learn how to conjugate all verbs listed in Exercise 7 (and practiced in all other Лексико-граммaтические упражнения) and to use them correctly in your own speech and writing.

  1. Work with all verb exercises in the book as well as the Intermediate Exercises on the COLLT site. COLLT will give you practice and help evaluate your progress. The green "skip" button allows you to go directly to the assigned Lesson. As you type to fill the blanks, use any source for reference: the glossary at the end of the Intermediate Russian book, the table on pp. 286, 287, the online Russian Dictionary Tree (under On-line course materials), or any other publication. The online exercises, just like the same ones in the book, show the use of the verbs in their most common meanings. Work until you get all the endings right and do not forget to click Finish. The expected 100% score you should achieve after doing each Lesson is shown in the syllabus. Ignore COLLT's message about leaving too many questions unanswered--that's because there are 18 Lessons in the book, and you're only doing one Lesson at a time.
  2. Instead of recording sound for the last page in the COLLT lesson, meet with a classmate and together compose a skit (a dialogue between two people) of about 8 to 12 lines. This work will be much more efficient and fun when you use a custom-designed AI "teaching assistant" at https://hita.ai. You should have already received an email invitation to register at the site. If you have not, speak to your teacher. Here are the quick-start directions for working with HiTA once you are registered and logged in:

    You will be asked to “choose an Assistant,” where one of the options is Intermediate Russian, with an icon that shows a diamond. You will see the same diamond in the navigation bar on the left. Click either of these. You will see a new navigation menu on the left.

    When you hover over Activities at top left, an Expand icon (a "V") will appear next to it. Click it.

    Then click Lesson 1 Verb Skit at the top of the Activities list. That's where you will compose a skit. Read and follow the prompts.

    As you do when you interact with any AI bot, type your requests or responses at the prompt (the box with an icon that looks like a paper clip).

    From this point on, you are chatting with the bot that has been configured to help you compose a skit, as a dialog between two people, in Russian, using the vocabulary from the Intermediate Russian book and including in it at least 5 verbs from the current Lesson’s verb list. It is best to do this with a classmate so the two of you can act out your skit in class.

    When you have a question about Russian words, grammar, spelling, and the like, interact with the bot in English, and it will respond in English whenever it explains your mistakes or a language principle. All else will be in Russian.

    You can tell your AI TA what you want the skit to be about, how long it should be, who the characters are, etc. You can insist on various details, e.g. ask it to display each character's speech on a new line. You can ask the bot to display a list of the verbs it used. You can ask it to show the correct endings for any Russian word. Or to show the relevant endings in boldface, etc.

    You are not required to submit your text. Just bring it to class, try to memorize it for good, fun delivery, and perform for your classmates. If they have questions for you about your characters, use your imagination!

    Assignment for the Translation class:

    1. Write the Translation exercise, called Перевод in each Lesson. It is always the last exercise in the Lesson. Start by reading--carefully!--the grammatical explanation that precede the actual English sentences for translation. Then write the Russian translation of each sentence. As you do this, review the necessary parts of Text (and Dialogs, if assigned; if the syllabus never assigns the Dialogs portion of the Lesson, then you are not responsible for this part of the translation exercise). In the fall 2020, you will see links in the syllabus for submitting this homework online in PDF format. Otherwise, hand it in at the end of the class. If you would like to type your translations, you may want to download a zipped MS Word file with the English text of all Translation exercises, including the explanations.
    2. Make up four English sentences with the type of translation problems that are covered in this Lesson's Translation exercise. In class, you will ask your classmates to translate your sentences into Russian.

    Assignment for the WWW class:

    Read the assigned Web page and try to figure out what it says. Use a good dictionary (a paperback edition of a R-E and E-R dictionary by Kenneth Katzner should serve you very well), but do not try to translate every sentence. The art of reading in a foreign language requires a fair proportion of guessing. When reading Russian, an understanding of the grammatical structure of the sentence will often provide very good clues.

    You will not be asked to discuss these stories or to use their Russian vocabulary. The purpose of this assignment is to practice reading and understanding. Do not spend more than an hour and a half on this assignment.