Dr Olga Sobolev PEL 6.01a and Mrs Irina Forbes

This course is available on the MA in Modern History. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course is available with permission to General Course students.

Available as an outside option to all undergraduate and General Course students. Students can take this course in any year of their studies following approval from the teacher responsible and subject to their own programme regulations.

Completion of the Russian Language and Society 3 (Advanced) course (LN100) or an equivalent command of Russian is required. An interview with the course co-ordinator prior to registration is compulsory. 

Further advanced (up to proficiency) study of the Russian language within the framework of social sciences and culture. In a dynamic and communicative way the course develops all four language skills (i.e. speaking, listening, reading and writing) through individual and group work, topical discussions, authentic and web-based multi-media materials. The focus is on accuracy as well as communication that advance students’ language competence, transferable skills and cultural awareness.

30 hours of classes in the MT. 30 hours of classes in the LT. 3 hours of classes in the ST.

Three hours per week, which will feature: (a) interactive topical work; (b) oral practice; (c) grammar and vocabulary work; (d) tutorials; and (e) guided study using IT and web-based materials. Structured activities during reading week.

This course has reading weeks in week 6 of Michaelmas and Lent terms.

Students will be required to complete weekly language exercises.

Colloquial Russian 2, by Olga Sobolev, Natasha Bershadski et al, Routledge, 2018. 

Addiitional: Russian media sources on the web; Terence Wade, A Comprehensive Russian Grammar (Blackwell, 2010); Richard Sakwa, Henry E. Hale, Stephen White Developments in Russian Politics 9 (Red Globe Press, 2018); Robert Service The Penguin History of Modern Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-first Century (Penguin, 2015); Jeffrey Brooks, The Firebird and the Fox: Russian Culture under Tsars and Bolsheviks (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Exam (30%, duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes) in the summer exam period.
Oral examination (30%) in the ST.
Continuous assessment (40%) in the MT and LT.

Language courses map to the Common European Framework for Language Learning.  This framework defines linguistic proficiency in the four language skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) at different levels.  To pass this course, students are therefore required to achieve a pass mark in each element of the assessment (continuous assessment, oral and written exams), as these test all four skills.