The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
The Johns Hopkins University
Russian: Syllabus for Intermediate 1 – Int-Low/Mid level 2003-2004 Course number 201-202 This level requires two semesters (6 h/w of class-work each) These hours do not include preparation of homework and lab work. Course description Intermediate course is expected to strengthen and
expand skills introduced in the beginning course. Goal Speaking First semester Intermediate Low Plus in everyday conversations and on
politics, national security, and socio-economics as areas
of particular strength. Second semester Intermediate Mid in everyday conversations and on
politics, national security, and socio-economics as areas
of particular strength. Proficiency level description . Able to participate in casual conversations in many situations, but not consistently, can express facts, give instructions, describe and report about current, past and future activities albeit with gaps. Content includes concrete topics such as one’s own background, family, interests, work, travel, and political, socio-economic and security issues. Speaking is taught in role-playing situations in which students are expected to respond in coherent sentence length utterances. Work on speaking in short paragraphs begins during the second semester of this level. Accuracy. Understandable to native speaker not used to dealing with foreigners. Sometimes miscommunication occurs. Goal Reading First semester Intermediate Mid with political "hot-house specials." Second semester Intermediate High with political "hot-house specials."
Proficiency level description. Able to read somewhat longer prose of several paragraphs in length, particularly if presented with a clear underlying structure. The prose is predominantly in familiar sentence patterns. Reader gets the main ideas and facts and misses some details. Comprehension derives not only from situational and subject matter knowledge but from increasing control of the language. Texts at this level include short news articles on politics, socio-economics and national security from Russian newspapers for the general reader.
Goal Listening First semester Intermediate Low Plus with political "hot-house specials". Second semester Intermediate Mid with political "hot-house specials". Proficiency level description. Able to understand main ideas and some details of connected discourse on a variety of topics beyond the immediacy of the situation. Comprehension may be uneven due to a variety of linguistic and extralinguistic factors, among which topic familiarity and acoustic purity are very prominent. Listening strategies are taught to get information from unadapted reports. Content includes short TV news reports which frequently involve description and narration in different time frames or aspects, such as present, nonpast, habitual, or imperfective. Grammatical accuracy comes in a way designed to give total
control over basic items necessary for sentence
structuring and partial control over more
complicated items.
Noun Case forms near full control over distribution necessary for sentence
structuring. Pronoun
-то and -нибудь partial control in speaking. Adjective
Comparatives full control of regular forms and
and superlatives partial control of irregulars in speaking. Verb
Verbal aspect partial control in speaking. Verbs of partial control in active skills.
beginning and ending - ся verbs full control of three meanings of -ся in receptive skills;
partial control of reflexive verbs in speaking. Participles partial control of regular active and passive forms in
active skills.
Verbal adverbs partial control of regular perfective and imperfective
in active skills. Subjunctive partial control of ЧТОБЫ and ЕСЛИ БЫ
+ Past tense constructions in speaking and
aural comprehension. Passive voice full reading control Syntax Subordinate partial control in speaking;
clauses full reading control.
Materials: Simes N. and Robin R.M. Political Russian, Circle One
Fourth Edition, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 2002
Pre-reading taped audio comprehension exercises
Russian TV interviews
Pulkina I., Russian, Moscow, USSR., Grammar reference
book
A large collection of Soviet and Russian movies is at the
students’ disposal.
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