Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

RUS 201 is the first quarter of a three quarter second year Russian sequence. Students should have completed a full year of college level Russian, three years of high school level Russian or have the equivalent experience with Russian to be successful in this course. If you have experience with Russian and are unsure if RUS 201 is the right class for you, please email me about taking a placement test. Kristine Shmakov at: kshmakov@pcc.edu 

Class structure: RUS 201 is a remote online class that meets over Zoom for our class sessions twice a week on the days and times listed in the schedule. During our Zoom classes together, I’ll teach you Russian vocabulary and grammar and we’ll practice together as a class and in breakout rooms with a partner to maximize the time you get practicing. The course will be taught in full Russian immersion, so you’ll hear and speak Russian as much as possible. It’s a great and super effective way to learn a language! Gaining basic speaking, reading, writing, and listening skills is the primary goal of this class, and we’ll have fun practicing together while incorporating cultural components, lively activities, games, and music…all in Russian! Learning a language requires making thousands of mistakes and our classroom will be a safe and encouraging environment to make those mistakes and receive support as you learn Russian. Camera usage is an important part of building our language learning community, so we can all see each other speaking and use body language to help us communicated and stay in Russian. Make sure you have a working webcam and microphone for participating in this class.

Attendance requirements: This class meets live over Zoom on T/Th from 1-3:20pm. Attendance at the first class of the week is always required. For the second class each week students have two choices: 1) Either attend the live Zoom class or 2) watch a 2 hour 20 minute pre-recorded asynchronous teaching/activity video and submit audio recordings of all the oral video activities and the written activities before coming to class the following Tuesday to receive a participation grade. Attendance at the second Zoom class of the week is strongly encouraged, and it’s much more fun than watching a video and recording yourself! But those who can’t regularly attend twice a week will still be able to learn Russian and do well in the course by completing activities in the asynchronous class videos instead. This can allow you to fit learning Russian into your schedule if you have work conflicts.

Time commitment: You’ll need to budget 9-10 hours a week for this course to be successful: 4 hours and 50 minutes attending class, plus another and an additional 4-5 hours studying and completing two homework assignments per week.

Textbook requirements: There are both a textbook and a homework book for this course. All students are required to purchase the homework from the PCC Sylvania Bookstore for $24. The same homework book will be used for RUS 202 and 203.

You also must have our Second-year Russian textbook “Poidyom-Intermediate Russian”, and it is available in two different formats. 1) You may opt to use a free downloadable pdf of the textbook that will be posted on the RUS 201 D2L page. It’s a 650-page pdf and can be cumbersome to use while attending class on Zoom. We will also be writing in it regularly. But, it is free! 2) Students who would prefer to buy a hard copy of the textbook, so that they can write in it and use it more easily while attending class on Zoom, can purchase it at the PCC Sylvania Bookstore for about $101. This will be out textbook for RUS 202 and 203 too. If you can afford the textbook, I encourage you to purchase it, since it’s easier to use a hard copy. But, if you need to save money, you can use the free pdf.

You will also need a Russian dictionary for second year. The Russian-English/English-Russian Dictionary by Kenneth Katzner is the best one, but you can use others. The Sylvania Bookstore carries Katzner as an optional book for $40, but you can usually find it used on Amazon.com or other booksellers for much cheaper.

Student success: Students who have taken our remote Zoom Russian classes love interacting as a class and with partners during breakout rooms and getting immediate feedback from me during classes. They also appreciate the option to attend either the Thursday Zoom class or watch the asynchronous class video for the second class of the week. This combination of synchronous and asynchronous formats provides flexibility and allows you to fit RUS 201 into your busy schedule. Students in our remote classes consistently attain the same levels of oral, written, and listening proficiency as they do in face-to-face classes. This isn’t surprising because everything about the remote Russian courses is the same as with in-person classes, except we meet over Zoom instead of in a classroom on campus. You can find more information about the PCC Russian program at: pcc.edu/programs/russian.

Please email me at kshmakov@pcc.edu if you have any questions about the course. I am looking forward to starting our Russian language journey together and working with you this fall!

Sincerely,

Kristine Shmakov

Microphone and web camera