Dr Olga Sobolev PEL 6.01a and Mrs Larisa Leifland Berntsson

For all students who aim to reach the Advanced level of proficiency in Russian.

Language skills and knowledge of Russian at the A2 level of the Common European Reference Framework for Languages; 180 hours of language learning (including self-study).

All students must gain permission of the tutor in the Needs Analysis Interview to take this course.

Course Aim:

• To bring students’ knowledge of written and spoken Russian up to higher intermediate/advanced level, corresponding to level B1 of CEFR. Students will be ready to take exams (at the end of the Lent Term) and obtain the International TORFL Certificate (Test of Russian as a Foreign Language).
• To develop an ability to communicate effectively in Russian (using high-frequency vocabulary and structures) in a variety of social situations.
• To enable students to follow and discuss social, political and economic issues related to Russian-speaking countries at a intermediate to advance language level
• To establish linguistic skills and attitudes required for promoting and facilitating further study of Russian.

Communicative Content: The course is focused on the following aspects:

• linguistic implications and use of the subjunctive and conditional modes;
• mastering a broader range of vocabulary; performing a variety of tasks in a wider range of factual, persuasive and expressive language contexts;
• combining and recombining language elements to accomplish tasks; reviewing and analysing key issues within a topic studied;
• summarising the main ideas of a short document in a target language.

Structural Content: The course covers a wide range of vocabulary required for communicative functions and focuses on the following linguistic structures (the command in these areas is expected to be appropriate to the level and task):

• aspects of verbs;
• comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs;
• negative and indefinite adverbs; subjunctive mood; participles and gerunds;
• compound sentences & syntactic structures.

16 hours of classes in the MT. 22 hours of classes in the LT. 2 hours of classes in the ST.

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

Olga Sobolev, Natasha Bershadski et al,  Colloquial Russian 2, Routledge, 2018, ISBN-13: 978-1138098015

Additional:

• Terence Wade, A Comprehensive Russian Grammar, Blackwell, 2010, ISBN-13: 978-1138098015
• T.R. Beyer, 501 Russian Verbs, 2008, ISBN: 978-0764137433
• Oxford Russian Dictionary, eds M.Wheeler, B. Unbegaun & D. Thompson, Oxford University Press, ISBN: 978-0198614203

Continuous assessment (70%) in the MT, LT and ST.
Oral examination (30%) in the LT and ST.

Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.