Today I will answer a question from the mail: You represent Soroka as a one-year-long course, but the Student’s Book is so thin. How is that?
Today we will deal with a calendar and count. Soroka is designed for those students who study Russian once a week. Let’s count how many lessons they have over a year.
Begin. Ordinarily the academic year starts in September and goes up to May – nine months (certainly, it may differ, depending on the country). Every month we have four lessons, sometimes five. Nine multiplied by four – 36 lessons for one year. (9х4=36)
In fact we have less than 36 lessons, as we have vacations and holidays. We also need to do tests – we have three in each course level – which also take time. That’s why the number of lessons decreases.
Continue. Each level of Soroka consists of 15 units.
Thirty-six hours divided by 15 – two and a half hours for one unit in the student’s book.
What does it mean? We have four pages in every unit in the Student’s Book, plus four pages in every unit in the Activity Book. Thus, we have eight pages for two and a half hours. Is that much or not?
Remember that a lesson doesn’t comprise only exploring pages in the Student’s Book. Before making assignments in the Activity Book, students are to pronounce them. It is obligatory and not open for discussion.
In addition to oral and written assignments, you need to listen to the audio files and play, drill the words and phrases orally, introduce them to speech and write dictations. You can use toys to expand the group (and the amount of repetitions) in case your group is small or your lessons are private.
Take seven or eight words and drill them during one lesson. I don’t recommend you take 15 words, as you won’t have enough time for drilling.
If you conduct classes twice a week, you have a chance to complete the Soroka 1 course faster – over one term.
The Teacher’s Book offers you an outline of each lesson, which certainly can be adapted according to your goals and objectives.
The beauty of the Soroka course is that you can go on vacations. Once you complete the book, you can continue lessons by going to the next level. Will talk about it next time.
To sum up: If you do all of the assignments that Soroka offers, you will see that despite the thinness of the book, it is quite functional.
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