RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 1
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Full programme
- Bibliography
- Delivery method
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
No prerequisite knowledge of the Russian language is required to take this course.
Learning will be verified through a final exam aimed at evaluating various language skills (between written/oral comprehension and written/oral expression), following the descriptors developed by the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (2001).
It consists of a written test and an oral test. The written test is preparatory to the oral one.
The written test is divided into: morpho-syntactic and lexical test, consisting of a series of exercises of various types; written production test (such as, for example, writing a short informal letter or a short narrative text) and comprehension of a short narrative or non-fiction text. The ability to understand will be tested thanks to a series of questions in Russian relating to the text given, to which the student is required to answer in writing. The use of vocabulary is not allowed. In the written test the spelling and grammar correctness, the expressive properties and the ability to understand Russian will be assessed.
The oral exam is divided into a conversation with the language expert and a final oral exam on the theoretical part of the course with the teacher. In the conversation, students will have to demonstrate the ability to maintain a dialogue on the topics studied during the exercises, expressing themselves correctly and with good pronunciation. In the final theoretical part they will have to demonstrate that they have acquired a theoretical knowledge of the Russian language, to be able to describe its functioning and specificities. Each of the tests is considered passed if each of its parts is evaluated with a result equal to or greater than 18/30.
AIMS
The course, aimed at absolute beginners, aims to develop the skills necessary to interact with Russian speakers, effectively albeit at an elementary level, in the most common situations of everyday life. It intends to provide students with sufficient theoretical knowledge to think over morphosyntactic structures.
The course aims to allow students who do not have any knowledge of the Russian language to reach a level of linguistic competence comparable to that of A1 (Уровень Элементарного Общения - Breakthrough Level).
EXPECTED LEARNING RESULTS
At the end of the course, the student will be able to:
1. Understand short oral and written texts on topics related to the personal and social sphere;
2. produce short oral texts on trace or autonomously to describe people or situations in an elementary way;
3. ask for information;
4. interact with questions / answers on issues of daily life;
5. fill in an elementary form;
6. write short personal letters;
7. produce simple translations to and from the source language;
8. reproduce texts written on dictation or by integrating them at the request of the teacher with the correct linguistic structures;
9. reflect on the Russian language system (phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon) and its related linguistic functions.
Morphology and syntax: grammatical categories (gender, number, case);
strong and weak inflection patterns (nouns and adjectives, pronouns
personal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, relative); numerals
cardinals and ordinals; meaning and main uses of the cases; regency of the most frequently used verbs and prepositions; adverbs and predicative adverbs; the verb "to be" and the construction that expresses possession ("to have"); verbal inflection: present, past, simple and compound future; consonant alternations, loss / addition of suffixes; some irregularities; reflexive verbs. Simple, enunciative, interrogative, negative propositions.
During the first module the following topics will be dealt with:
- Typological characteristics of Slavic languages. Typological features of the Russian language.
- The Russian graphics system.
- Phonetic and phonological system: main oppositions. The vowel reduction. The phonetic transcription.
- Accent (position and patterns), intonation (intonative patterns of type 1, 2, 3, 4), variants of the orthoepic norm.
- Notions of gender, number, chance and animosity.
- Strong and weak inflection patterns (nouns and adjectives, personal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, relative pronouns).
- The cardinal and ordinal numerals.
During the second module the following topics will be dealt with:
- Verbal system. Conjugations (1-2), modes (infinitive, indicative and imperative) and tenses (present, past and future). The category of the imperfective and perfective verbal aspect. The category of movement and directionality.
- Adverbs and adverbial phrases.
- Time expressions. Rental expressions.
- Expression of negation;
- Expression of the modality;
- Basic elements of syntax. Simple, enunciative, interrogative, negative propositions.
All Power Point presentations of the course are available in the relative folder of the ELearning platform.
The texts adopted are:
Magnati, D., Legittimo Cichachev, F., Iashaiaeva, S. 2017. Davajte Comunicare in russo. VOL. 1. Milano: Hoepli.
Chavronina S. A. 2007. Il Russo. Esercizi. Roma: Il Punto Editoriale.
Non-attending students and those wishing to deepen individual aspects of the course are advised to read one or more of the following texts:
• F. Fici Giusti, L. Gebert, S. Signorini. 1991. La lingua russa. Storia, struttura, tipologia. Firenze: La Nuova Italia scientifica.
• P. Cubberley. 2002. Russian: A linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• A. Gančikov. 2004. Grammatica russo facile. Milano: Vallardi.
• К.И.Пехливанова, М.Н.Лебедева. 2007. Грамматика русского языка в иллюстрациях. Москва: Русский Язык.
• C. Cevese, Ju. Dobrovol’skaja, E. Magnanini. 2000. Grammatica Russa. Morfologia: Teoria e Esercizi. Milano: Hoepli.
• C. Cevese, Ju. Dobrovol’skaja. 2005. Sintassi Russa: Teoria e Esercizi. Milano: Hoepli.
The course will be delivered through lectures that will use Power-Point presentations, which will then be uploaded to the course folder on the ELearning platform.
It will be complemented by interactive language exercises held by linguistic experts, aimed at consolidating and expanding communication in the four skills. The subject of the laboratory lessons are: reading, writing and listening exercises; grammar exercises; expansion of the lexicon; practice in oral production (dialogical and monological).
Frequency of the laboratory lessons is mandatory and is part of the overall time commitment. Students will have to carry out self-study activities, which will be verified in the classroom. At the language laboratories, the sharing of acquired skills will be enacouraged with the purpose of training for mutual collaboration and comparison. There will be tests to check the skills acquired.
Students will also have access to a wide range of resources for deepening and strengthening knowledge of material learned in the self-access language laboratory.
The program is divided into two modules.
Frequency mode
Continuous attendance is strongly recommended. Non-attending students are requested to contact the teacher at the beginning of the academic year for an additional program.
Mother tongue students:
Only those who have an excellent spoken and written knowledge of standard Russian (литературный язык) will be considered as native Russian speakers. Native speakers will have to study the theoretical part of the course in order to explain the phonetic and morphosyntactic peculiarities of the Russian language system during the exam.
Office hours: Office 2.2. Via Bossi 5, 22100 Como or, if this is not possible due to force majeure, online via Teams. Students are invited to contact the teacher via email to make an appointment.