On the Air

What is On the Air? On the Air is comprehensive text and video program based on authentic Russian television public affairs broadcasts. Designed for Russian-language students of international affairs and Russian area studies, On the Air gives students the training they need to understand and discuss Russian news broadcasts.

What should teachers and students expect of On the Air? Students using On the Air should be at a solid Intermediate Mid (ILR 1) level in speaking and listening with strengths in topics of international affairs and Russian politics. That means the ability to speak on the sentence level about oneself and immediate interests. Students should also be able to understand simple connected speech such as basic directions or a weather report. For most in a college setting, this means that On the Air is for use at the third or fourth year level that is, after about the initial 200 - 300 hours of classroom instruction.

After completing a course taught using On the Air, students can expect to comprehend the gist and main details news and public affairs broadcasts for the topics covered. They can also expect to produce paragraphed narration on those topics.[1]

Why use On the Air? Courses based on target-language television newscasts are no longer a novelty, but rather a necessary component of all complete foreign-language programs. But the 1990s witnessed tremendous change, both social and technological. The media landscape of Russia has changed drastically since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. The political upheaval that plagues Russia as the millennium draws to a close is reason enough for new, updated teaching materials. But it is not only Russia ' political fabric that has undergone change; the events of the 1990s have transformed virtually every aspect of the language of public discourse. Once stable and easy to master, the language of television news has seen a massive influx of vocabulary, a disappearance of easy-to-understand boilerplate, sloppier diction on the part of anchors, and even a speed-up of delivery rate (doubled from an average of four syllables per second in the 1980s).

Writers of materials for intermediate and advanced students have rushed to keep up with these changes. The 1990s saw the appearance of new textbooks at all levels with strong video components.[2] Yet none of them has been able to fill the need for easily accessible instructional materials dedicated to the new world of Russian news and public affairs with equal emphasis on comprehension and speaking.

On the Air represents a significant departure from the closest previous similar packages. It is the first coordinated video-and-text package based on authentic television produced after the breakup of the Soviet Union that provides Advanced-level support for bothspeaking and listening/video comprehension on the most hotly discussed topics in Russia today: official visits, international negotiations, government crises, economics and business, national security and armed conflicts, the role of women, crime, and urban/rural issues.

On the Air consists of two volumes representing concentric circles of spiraling proficiency. Circle One introduces each of the topics mentioned above. This volume, Circle Two, returns the student to each of the topics for more in-depth coverage.

Each unit of On the Air starts with familiar territory: reading. Students read introductory texts on the topic at hand and familiarize themselves with the vocabulary they can expect to hear. Initial speaking exercises start students on the road to activating the new vocabulary in context. Students then listen to three news items on each topic. Listening is divided into initial listening (in conjunction with standard pre-listening activities: advance organizers and prediction strategies). Second-round listening activities lead the student to focus on details.

From initial listening students learn to use what they have heard to create more polished connected speech following the models available in the video segments. Thus students can take advantage of the video not only for comprehension practice, but also as models for paragraph structure: vocabulary, sentence building, and conversation management.

In this way On the Air makes the oft-ignored skills of video comprehension the centerpiece of any given unit, while speaking, the hardest skills for adults to master, is practiced both initially, after each introductory reading text, and for polish after the student plugs in the video material.

These skills form the basis for achieving Advanced-level performance in both the receptive and productive skills the goal of the authors of On the Air.