Между нами is a complete first-year college level Russian course that has been designed for programs that have roughly 150 contact hours of instruction. The material is organized into nine units (уроки) and an epilogue, with each урок subdivided into three parts (части). Each часть shares common thematic and grammatical content which unfolds over the course of several episodes (эпизоды). Еach эпизод on the website consists of a Текст, a related set of comprehension activities called Вы всё поняли? (Did You Get All of Тhat?) and a related grammar explanation called Немно́го о языке́ (A Bit About the Language). In addition to the website, there is a print-on-demand workbook of classroom activities (Работа в аудитории) and homework activities (Домашние задания). The authors envision users working through these materials in small cycles, moving between the website and the two workbooks.
You will find a list the communicative and linguistic goals for each unit on the website. You will also find a list of vocabulary encountered in each unit. These lists do not prioritize which words need to be learned for "active" usage and which for "passive" knowledge, so teachers should use the classroom activities manual and the homework activities to determine which words students should focus on for the unit. It should be made explicit to the students that words that regularly appear in the classroom activities and in the homework assignments are the ones that are most likely to appear on quizzes and tests.
The schedule provided below is intended for a semester program with five 50-minute "hours" per week. If your program has classes lasting more than 50 minutes or classes that do not meet every day (or both), your will need to adjust your pacing accordingly.
Day of work on episode |
Activities done in class | Homework students do for next class |
|---|---|---|
0 |
may do some previewing of the new episode at the end of this class |
|
1 |
Use initial pair/group activities in the Работа в аудитории to:
|
|
2 or 2-3 |
|
|
3 or 4 |
Work on new episode's text begins... |
|
Every unit is roughly the same size, and was designed to take roughly 15 contact hours to complete. In pilot testing, however, we have found that there is some variation among the units. We offer the following guide to help with scheduling.
Contact Hours |
Rolling Total |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Урок 1 |
13-15 |
Fall Quarter | Fall Semester (In a intensive 65-hour semester course with highly motivated students. A more typical amount for a 65-hour semester would be through episode 5.1 or 5.2.) |
|
Урок 2 |
13-15 |
26-30 |
||
Урок 3 |
16-18 |
42-48 |
||
Урок 4 |
12-14 |
54-62 |
Winter Quarter | |
Урок 5 |
13-16 |
67-78 |
||
Урок 6 |
16-18 |
83-96 |
Spring Semester | |
Урок 7 |
17-19 |
100-115 |
Spring Quarter | |
Урок 8 |
14-16 |
114-131 |
||
Урок 9 |
13-15 |
127-146 |
||
Эпилог |
2-3 |
129-149 |
The "standard" grammar of a first year Russian course -- all the cases (singular and plural) with their essential usages, and the basic verb system (present, past, future of imperfective and perfective verbs) -- are covered in Units 1-8. Programs that are pressed for time can focus on just the plot in Unit 9 and the epilogue and reduce the time required to about 5-6 contact hours. Programs could also skip episode 7.8 entirely or have students just read the text without activating all the vocabulary.
There are, however, almost no short cuts that instructors can take in the first five units as the grammar and sentence structures are high frequency and highly useful. One might save a bit of time by going lightly on some vocabulary sets, such as the clothing words presented in episode 1.8, the adjectives and nouns of nationality in episode 2.3, the household objects presented in episode 4.1, or the hobbies presented in episode 5.8.
For other institutional contexts where there are fewer than 100 contact hours per year, instructors may find it necessary to save Unit 7 for the start of a second year of Russian. In this case, instructors are strongly encouraged to start the year with some intensive review of the characters and the storyline. This will help refresh the memories of students after the summer and perhaps give some context for students who might have used a different first-year textbook.
