Dr Olga Sobolev CMK. C614 and Dr Ekaterina Rogatchevskaia

250 hours including self study (16+), six/seven years at school level, good pass in As-level (grade A) or low pass in A-level (grades B-C). For all students who aim to reach higher advanced level of proficiency in Russian.

Course Aim: To consolidate students’ command of written and spoken Russian. To gain an insight into aspects of social, political and cultural life in Russia and other Russian speaking countries. To establish linguistic skills and attitudes required for promoting and facilitating further study of Russian. To bring the students to level B2/C1 of CEFR. Communicative Content: At the end of the programme students will be able to demonstrate competence in the use of communicative functions in the four skills (oral, aural, reading, writing) by: showing competence in the use of complex and technical language in a variety of contexts and with a substantial requirement to select and adapt appropriate language strategies; being able to respond to a wide range of spontaneous foreign language interventions; being able to use a variety of sources (print, audio, video, IT based); handling factual knowledge within specific perspective; being able to produce, in a coherent and structured way, an oral presentation and a written work within the framework of studied topics; being able to grasp the main ideas of a document in a target language and produce a coherent summary in English. Structural Content: This course is focused on discussion, gist translation and essay work, based on extracts from newspaper articles, recorded materials and topical texts. All major grammatical areas are revised and covered in depth; particular attention is paid to syntax. In written work the emphasis is on structure and register of the language. The language command in these areas is expected to be appropriate to the level and task with the emphasis on active usage.

12 hours of classes in the MT. 20 hours of classes in the LT. 8 hours of classes in the ST.

This is a 40 hour-course. Please refer to the LSE timetable for course teaching arrangements.

Course Books: the course is based on the current Russian press and media materials. Grammar: Terence Wade, A Comprehensive Russian Grammar, Blackwell, 2000. Dictionary: Oxford Russian Dictionary, eds M. Wheeler, B. Unbegaun & D. Thompson, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000; Cultural Awareness: Nicholas Rzhevsky, Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture, Cambridge University Press, 2012

Continuous assessment (50%) in the MT, LT and ST.
Oral examination (30%) in the LT and ST.
In class assessment (20%) in the LT.