Dear Teacher Marina,
Thak you so much for an excellent begginers Russian Course and for being a great Teacher. Previously to taking this course I had already study by myself almost all the contents of this course but since it was a paper book many things were not clear to me becuase it was just like a quick study guide of basic Russian Grammar .
But once I found your course , every day it was like coming to school and go home and do my homework. The Basic grammar I thought i knew it was not clear to me but with the course I started to understand lesson by lesson well with very clear explanations , audio, video, exercises , history , culture and tests, a complete package.
I can see you love teaching and probably took you a long time to put this course together and I really appreciate that because each lesson made me to study it with such interest and made learning much more interesting. I am sure many of us in the long run will see the value of your work.
I already said I felt I was in a real classroom but eventhough you were not present you made me work hard. After this course , my Russian Language Learning will be easier.
I spent 5 months to get to the end of this course but at the same time I followed another simmilar video course and I focus on the 6 cases at the beggining level. So combining The Key/ Elementary plus the study of the 6 cases at a beginning level, gave me a lot on understanding the course. I did not want to rush and finish the course until i didnt understand every lesson on each module.
Now , thanks to this course and the other course I found a new way to keep studyng Russian Language and probably someone will think is funny, a joke , silly, or awkward what i am going to say but since last month i thought i could learn Russian Language by watching videos of Russian Teachers Teaching English to Russian Native Speakers. I find it very helpful study like this and i see good result too.
The way I learn , I listen The English Russian Teacher Teaching English but what I like is the Teacher talks like 60% in Russian Language to Russian Native Speakers to Teach them English and 40% English. So, I listen and I almost get what the Teacher says in Russian ( 60%) and what I dont understand I write it down and translate it right away ( words, or phrases and paying attention to gramatical constructions) But all this I can do it with the help i got and what I learned from the Key> Elementary Course.
Also, I would like to share some text of a new excellent study book I recently bought to continue studying too, wich mentions the importance of learning basic Russian Grammar at the elementary level, just like in your Key, Elementary Russian Course. And the prove is at this time , i can express my own words ( at the level I know, of course) and not only repeat phrases like a parrot that i dont even know how were they constructed. I often in youtube i see video clips telling , learn the 200 or 500 russian phrases , boost your Russian but if you see all the phrases , they all are constructed involving all the grammar and just repeating and memorizing (it helps ) but i would not know the construction of each phrase if one does not know cases and basic grammar.
Here is the text:
Specificity of the Russian language learning at the elementary level:
WHY DO NOT TRADITIONAL APPROACHES WORK?
In the English language learning its grammar basis gradually becomes more complicated at each level of studies (the higher the level the more complicated is its grammar). In the Russian language it is vice versa.
The main grammar material (approximately 70% of the grammar) is studied at the elementary level. The further development of the language is realized through enriching of vocabulary and syntax. For instance, exercises to train motion verbs without prefixes at A2 and B2 (even C2) levels will differ in relation to a big amount of accompanying vocabulary but not in their grammar components.
If you managed to learn types of Russian verbs at A1+/A2 level, you will not have any difficulties with this topic at B2 level. On the contrary, if at a high level of studies you suffer problems with the use of aspects, you have to return to the elementary level and revise the material.
In accordance with CEFR, at the elementary level a student can talk about himself/herself, a family, friends, a workplace and hobbies. However, while in the English language such topics require a relatively small number of grammar constructions and vocabulary units in the Russian language their amount increases to approximately 70% of the grammar [1].
Such concentration of grammar topics at the elementary level makes traditional approaches to language learning ineffective when coming to the Russian language. For instance, an attempt to study grammar in the context of particular speaking topics (an approach widely used in English language coursebooks) will look unnatural and will not help to achieve set goals. In such a situation a question arises how to tackle the problem. An answer can be found in understanding the logic of language under question.
A language is a living body whose skeleton is made by grammar. Without the knowledge of grammar it is impossible to make a sentence whatever topic you want to touch (politics, economics, family, sport etc.). In any case, the “grammar skeleton” will remain unchangeable while “growing muscles” of vocabulary can be done later and more easily after acquiring basic grammar skills.
Finally last but not least, starting from the first lesson even basic lexico-grammatical models are introduced into the real speech and real communicative situations.
Any foreign language is perceived by people as alien, strange and not always logical. This foreignness of a new language becomes the main obstacle on the way of achieving the goal of language learning. The aim is to help you to transfer the Russian language from a category of “alien and strange” to that of “mine and clear”. This aim is achieved through 3 stages, each of them being connected with one of the levels of a human perception (conscious, subconscious and unconscious).
At the first stage a detailed commentary is provided. This commentary explains in a clear language the logic of this or that lexico-grammatical construction. Here the process of comprehension is fulfilled through a logical understanding of the material (i.e. I understand why something works this way).
The second stage is connected with our subconsciousness. Here an associative link between a lexico-grammatical construction and a real communicative situation is created. Moreover, it is this stage which helps to solve the problem of a word-for-word translation (or loan translation from one's native language). This is necessary because as a rule one communicative situation in different languages require different language resources, which means that a word-for-word translation is inadequate in this case.
Lack of practice at this stage usually leads to the situation when a student can complete a grammar test but is unable to speak fluently or uses a loan translation from his/her native language in a real communicative situation.
Thus, to create an associative link between a lexico-grammatical construction and a real communicative situation a grammar book supplies each grammatical commentary with a big number of examples from real discourses. Most of the examples are provided with a translation. On the one hand, this approach guarantees better comprehension of the situation, on the other hand, it enables a student to see the language difference which makes a word-for-word translation impossible.
The last and the most important stage is connected with our unconscious. This is the most mysterious level of a human perception which has not been yet enough studied. It is on this level that spontaneous language reactions are formed.
Unconscious perception is extremely developed at early years of life. Children easily deal with gigabytes of new information, which they process unconsciously, and learn to speak quickly. But an adult cannot do the same.
Furthermore, a big number of exercises to practice and review the material is necessary.
To sum up, the material of a course book is structured in accordance with three stages of language acquisition: a commentary, an introduction to the real discourse through examples and revision exercises. [2].
[1] The information that you can share in English after 2 or 3 lessons you will manage to present in Russian only after 2 or 3 months of studying. Certainly, while studying you will acquire necessary skills to talk on the above-mentioned topics more widely. To get the impression of your potential development study the last pages where you can find Russian texts with translation into English. These are examples of what you can say after 2 or 3 weeks of studying a coursebook.
[2] A forming brain of a child and a brain of an adult person are completely different. When a child starts to perceive the information he has nothing to compare it with and, thus, nothing blocks his perception (i.e. the conscious level is practically not involved in the process). To achieve the same state of perception an adult person has to literally lose his memory, forget everything he knew before, including his native language
Many Thanks, Always
Enrique Perez
