For those who don’t know — a weekend school is a place where immigrants gather to teach their children Russian. This is not a state school with programs, requirements and final exams. Classes are usually held on Saturday and Sunday, hence the name.

So, we have children ages 7 to 9. The whole group is about the same age. Of course, it is better to divide such classes by levels. Well, at least so that native speakers and RFL students do not sit together.

If you can’t divide, then there are several strategies. Since everyone’s level is different, it means that the students are bilingual — i.e., they are not learning the language from scratch, but already know something, and bilinguals are a spectrum. Let’s remember this. What to do? Start from the end. See what’s at the end, how you want to achieve it. Think through the stages, how to reach the goal.

The advantage of a weekend school is that at the end of the year there is no certification, no exam at the end. Therefore, you are free to do whatever you want.

What ideas do I have?

Proceed with small courses, small projects that are three to four months long.

Be sure to test all the children, especially at the beginning! You can give any test; the main thing is that it checks all types of speech activity. At least you know more deeply what is going on in the heads of your students. Such knowledge helps you get your bearings.

Maybe, for the course you have chosen, your students will have just enough knowledge. If, for example, your course is packed into a production of the Russian folk tale “Teremok,” then there is no need for special grammar. And you can speak in monosyllables.

When there is such a motley crowd, it is better to choose one reference point for yourself. This could be some specific student. Or it could be some kind of test at the end. You can focus on the average level of the group (you conducted the testing; you know the average temperature in the hospital for optimal comfort and efficiency). Another option is to focus on strong students; the weak ones will swim on their own (or drown).

But there should be only one benchmark — we work toward it. By the way, this benchmark can be changed if you no longer like it.

What other strategy can there be? If the teacher has additional exercises in store (reading, for example), then these exercises can be offered to the student. But when will he do them? You need to plan a separate time for him to do them. When? At what point in the lesson? Please remember that you will not be able to turn group work into individual work! And in my opinion, all of these “additional tasks” will lead to nothing; they will only cause stress.

Here is a story from my life. I was taking a training course, and we were given a group of high school children. We had a student named Danil. He spoke Russian very well. Everything was in order with cases and verb conjugation. But he could not read or write! He was in a group with his American peers, Russian as a Foreign Language students. They were good at reading and writing. What strategy would you choose?

This was in a public school, in a summer program in Russian; the teacher didn’t have much choice but to simply follow the chosen program — and not pay much attention if someone sagged somewhere. In general, in the States the strategy is to help the strong.

There are textbooks that are supposedly designed for working in mixed-level groups. See for yourself. Such textbooks seem to have special exercises for those who can’t keep up with the group, and there are exercises that are designed for very strong students, but — there is still some level that teachers focus on! And this is the level I’m talking about. In the description, I leave a link to a review of a textbook from Germany, which was created specifically for mixed-level groups. But it is still difficult to work with such groups. It is better to divide them by levels.

In the end, working in a group where students have different levels of language proficiency is pure hell, and it’s better to divide such groups by levels. But if you can’t divide your group … well, then I hope you don’t die prematurely from stress. All the best!

Video lessons. It is very good to watch them, especially at a young age. If you trust the channel, you can turn it on so that the child can watch and go do other things. Passive can easily become active, and that is how it should be. Language comes in through the ears. When there is a lot of language input in the environment, it is great. Video lessons are just language in the environment. Convenient for parents. Convenient for teachers to give homework: “Watch a video.” A very good option. A small note. If it is only watching a video, then this is passive perception. To turn passive into active, I would add some active forms of work: questions or discussions.

A computer application. If the application is competent, then there is both passive and active perception. You can practice a lot of things, do exercises for all types of speech activity. It is important for parents to receive a report (the app should send this) that the child did not just click buttons, but how much time he spent, at what level, how much was correct/incorrect. All of this can be done in the app. A competent app will teach you itself, it will work everything out. And at a personal meeting in class, when everyone has worked through it, you can chat, play in a group, show the child his achievements. For me personally, the value of the app is that the computer app mixes up the tasks. Now it offers you one set of words or pictures, and then it mixes everything up and there will be a different set of words. This is a huge plus compared with the written text from a textbook (or even a video, which is also static). Why is this important? Because children have very good visual memory — when students see the same set of words, they simply remember the set of words visually. That is why we need the pictures to somehow change places or the words to change places. That is why we read the cards in class, and we read the cards so that they can be mixed up all the time, you know, so that if someone did it for me, some machine did it for me, I would only be happy.

Textbooks. The textbook already has all of the exercises thought out; the system is thought out. It is very good if the textbook can “speak.” Because after all, in the 21st century, languages ​​need to be taught with sound, and not explain phonetics on the fingers. If there are many different groups of students, then taking a textbook and following it is great, because less time is spent on preparing for lessons.

A textbook is very good for work, both for individual work and for work in a class with a teacher. A class is a group. The child sees that he is not alone (“suffering”) — in a group it is easy to create a language environment. For kids, a teacher is an extension of their mother. They begin to love the language because of the person who teaches this language (and because of their mother, too).

I have a video  about how to choose a textbook of Russian as a foreign language for children, and about how you can teach without a textbook at all.

What do I advise? Use everything at once, simultaneously: the textbook, video materials, and applications.

For those teachers who know the methodology; the technology; in what order to give lexical topics, grammatical topics, phonetics — for those who know all these, they don’t even need a textbook.

I’ll show you how I can conduct an RFL (Russian as a foreign language) lesson without a textbook.

First, I’ll make a list of words that we need to learn during the lesson. It’s desirable, of course, if it’s not just a list of words but some topic — for example, “City” or “School,” “Toys,” “Family” — so that the words are related to each other.

Then I mentally divide the whole lesson into four parts: listening, speaking, reading and writing. In terms of time, this is usually a quarter of the lesson for each type of speech activity.

Then I’ll think about what exercises to fill this topic with — what exercises I’ll have for listening. Maybe I’ll bring some videos to the students for the lesson, or maybe I’ll bring some songs. It all depends on the topic, and it all depends on the level and what they have covered. Then I will think about what exercises we will have for speaking on this topic. I will decide how we will practice (drill) words. Often listening and speaking exercises can be combined, so I will think about how to do this. I will look at what exercises we will practice words with, and in what dialogues we will use them for reinforcement. This is all about the oral part.

In the second half of the lesson, we will pay more attention to reading and writing. I will select exercises for reading. Personally, I like to read short dialogues so that later I can use them as a model for independent questions and answers.

I already have some kind of technology in my head. I already know: “Aha, this is an exercise for speaking, and this exercise is for writing.” If you do not yet know which exercises are designed for which type of speech activity, then watch my webinar about this — here is the link.

Let’s continue. For a lesson without a textbook, we need to know in what order to give the task, how to monitor its completion, and what are the criteria for whether the topic has been learned or not. You must understand why we need each specific task, what skill it teaches. And here we go back to the beginning again — study the profession, the technology of education. Yes, everything is very technological, and everything is described in different methodological books. For example, in the book by Akishina-Kagan “Learning to Teach,” all types of exercises are described, and why exactly we do them in the RFL lesson.

Then I look at the time. How much time do I have for each type of speech activity. Usually my lessons last 60 minutes. It turns out that we listen for 15 minutes, speak for 15 minutes, read for 15 minutes and write for 15 minutes.

If you do not know what exercises there are and for what purposes they are intended, then most likely you are a beginner teacher. In this case, you only know how to open brackets. There is nothing wrong with that; you will learn everything. In your case, you need a textbook. In the textbook, you will at least read and translate the dialogue. Reading the dialogue from the textbook in roles is already good — you will do something that is different from the brackets.

If you have a weekend school, you are your own boss and you decide in your school which textbooks to study from, or to refuse them altogether. Then before you refuse, think about what you will work with.

If there is a very large flow of students, and everyone has different programs (in my case, six groups of different ages and levels on one day), it is better to take something ready-made for each group, to spend less time preparing lessons.

And yes, I know that in the USA some schools really refuse textbooks. They have a curriculum that indicates what topics they cover; the teachers themselves fill the lesson. But you must understand what you are doing, what exercises to fill this lesson with. Even where to get these exercises.

In some countries there are banks with exercises. For example, in the U.S. teachers create their own exercises, then share them in these banks. There you can sort by subject, by topic. But there is very little for free in such banks — the main access is paid. And, most likely, the school where the teachers work pays for all this pleasure. This is how the experience is exchanged. And it all works great. But, when working with such sites, in addition to access, you also need to check the exercises themselves. Firstly, to what extent does this exercise correspond to the level of your students? Lexical and grammatical. Secondly, there may be mistakes, typos.

Result: It is quite possible to teach without textbooks.

Well then, the last question is this: If I am so smart and generally believe that it is possible to work without textbooks, then why do I write these textbooks? I will answer now. The thing is that, firstly, I was not always so smart. I study, I look at what my colleagues are doing — colleagues who teach other languages besides Russian as a foreign language — and what is new in the methodology. I read scientific articles, and at the same time I teach myself. In my opinion textbooks are needed in two cases, the first of which is for beginning teachers who have not yet gained experience, who still need to study a little to work out the technical side of the issue — which exercises are needed for what, how to control so that they tick off each item on the list of what needs to be done. The second case is when teachers are very busy, and they have absolutely no time to create their own programs. In this case, a textbook is very convenient — you take it, everything is already written there, everything that needs to be done is already there. See for yourself which is better. You can teach quite normally without textbooks.

1. Understand the teacher’s commands that must be followed: слушай, читай, повтори, скажи, подними руку.

2. Respond to tasks or commands: Повторите, пожалуйста! Извините, я не понял(а). Да, конечно. Можно?

3. Listen and repeat pairs of words: живот – он живёт, мы живем – живьем, цел – цель, полет – польет, был – бил, мыло – Мила, бить – пить, жар – шар.

4. Listen to the wordsчей – чай – чья, шьем – шутка – шьют, сел – съел – съесть, порт – Петр – пьет, and find each of them graphically. This version of the task is in “Soroka” in the work on reading with cards, but this is also a listening task. There are several cards on the table. The student hears the word and chooses the card on which the desired word is written. This is such an easy option for children.

5. Identify rhyming words by ear, mark them with numbers (пример, премьер, ножом, ружьем).

6. Listen to pairs of syllables (words, sentences), write in the graphic key (on the card), plus (+) if the syllables (words, sentences) are the same, and minus (-) if they are different.

7. Listen to the questions, and mark in a graphic key what a possible answer is:

• Вопрос: Сколько времени?

• Ответы: Сейчас холодно; Сейчас 2 часа; В два часа

8. Listen to the phrases, and mark in the graphic key the words that are named (names, geographical names, company names, etc.)

9. Dictation. Listen to the text, and try to understand its content. Listen to the text, and write (or draw, like in our Surikov dictation).

10. Listen to the phrases, and write the type of intonation structure. A lightweight option for children who walk along “Soroka”: Each has two cards in their hands — on one there is a “+,” and on the other there is a “?”. The teacher reads sentences with different intonations. When students hear a question, they pick up a card with a question mark (?); when they hear a regular declarative sentence, they pick up a card with a plus sign (+).

11. Listen to the text (watch the video), fill in the gaps in the graphic version of the text.

12. Listen to a series of words, remember and reproduce from them those that relate to one topic (the topic is named in advance).

13. Listen to the phrases, and combine them into one sentence (two to three short phrases are presented). You hear: Девочка сидит. Мальчик сидит. Вы говорите: Девочка и мальчик сидят.

14. Listen and repeat the phrases after the speaker (teacher). (Their length exceeds the capacity of short-term memory, i.e. consists of 10 or more words). Вчера наши студенты играли в футбол со студентами соседнего университета и проиграли.

15. Listen to the phrase, and add one more to it that is related in meaning.

• Вы слышите: Я живу в Нью-Йорке.

• Вы говорите: Я живу в Нью-Йорке. Это большой и красивый город.

16. Story with a picture: A picture of a city, a portrait or a series of portraits accompany the story. You need to understand what in the description does not correspond to the picture.

17. Story with a picture, No. 2: Put a series of pictures in the sequence in which they are described in the sound recording.

18. “By telephone” instructions are given on how to get (or walk) to a certain place. You need to draw a route on a map (city diagram). In “Soroka” there are pictures with which you can do this task.

19. One student talks about his house, the second draws a house plan.

20. Two students have lists that are different from each other. At “Soroka 3” we work with lists. One student reads his list aloud, the second compares it with his own.

There are other listening tasks in the book “Learning to Teach,” but they are intended for students at a higher level than we have in “Soroka.” Therefore, if you’re interested, read pages 85 and 93 of “Learning to Teach” for yourself. And those who have already worked on “Soroka” saw that the Teacher’s Book already contains many of these tasks. They were written specifically for the textbooks “Soroka” and “Sarafan.” I would say that Sarafan has more listening tasks.

As usual, write in the comments what you use in your work, and what you like or don’t like. How do your students feel about listening exercises?

If you study according to “Soroka” and use all my recommendations, then from the first lessons your students will learn to hear and understand spoken language addressed to them. And this is exactly what we need in the classroom. We remember that our work order is as follows: listening, speaking, reading and writing. And listening comes first. Let’s all go listen! Best wishes!

Today the book “Learning to Teach” by A.A. Akishina and O.E. Kagan will help me. This book has long been a classic for RFL teachers. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. Now let’s start with the shortcomings.

1. As I already said, often listening as an element of a lesson or homework is completely absent. The teacher believes that his Russian speech in class is listening, although this is not enough. What do we have to do? Listening should be a constant element of the lesson. When planning a lesson, the teacher must include special work on listening. Listening should be a constant element of homework. At least once a week, students should listen and perform exercises based on the material they have listened to without relying on visual perception.

2. The teacher tries very hard and removes absolutely all difficulties before the audio text; this happens when the preparatory work before the test is too much. This results in the student ceasing to be an active listener. On the contrary, it is necessary to teach the student to listen actively.

3. When offering an audio text, the teacher rushes to translate all incomprehensible words and phrases. This is also bad — it accustoms the student to constant prompting.

4. The opposite situation also happens — when the teacher does not give any hints at all, no context, and believes that students should understand everything themselves. The teacher repeatedly recites (or plays) some text; and the students, just as they did not understand from the very beginning, still don’t understand. What should be done? The teacher should imagine how difficult the audio text will be for the student, and whether they’ll be able to cope with the difficulties themselves (by not rushing to help, but rather developing a guess) or whether a hint is required. It is necessary to constantly teach students to “grasp” the main meaning so that they do not strive to understand every word.

5. The teacher, offering a text for listening, allows students to view (read) it. This also applies to subtitles. In this case, listening skills do not develop.

6. When offering a student a text for listening, the teacher doesn’t set listening goals: what the student needs to hear, and why he will listen to it. When offering audio texts, you need to set a goal — why you need to listen to this text: 1) to get the necessary information (to formulate what exactly), 2) to express your attitude to this event, and 3) to compare this information with what is already available, etc.

7. Oral types of speech (dialogue, polylogue) in class are, at best, simply read aloud. And often they are missed altogether. What do we have to do? It is best to give dialogues or polylogues first orally. At the same time, the teacher kills two birds with one stone: develops listening skills and introduces new text. From the point of view of modern methodology, it is not recommended to consider work on dialogue as work on reading.

What’s in “Soroka” and “Sarafan”? In my speeches, I constantly say that we have an order of working on the material: listening, speaking, reading and writing. As you already know, listening comes first here. I’ve already made a video about how to work with audio files in a lesson on “Soroka.”

I have a video tutorial for the “Soroka” textbook where I talk about the order of work (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and why this particular order is important to us.

We have free audio for lessons. Using these audio files you can introduce dialogues orally, as I already said today. The “Soroka” and “Sarafan” textbooks contain many tasks on listening and listening comprehension. For example, the dictation “Surikov.” There is a task to carry out commands: Show me where the red car is. This, too, is not an exercise in listening and understanding. Well, our favorite games are also about listening and listening comprehension.

Tell me in the comments what exercises you use in your lessons with your students. If you found the information useful, put + in the comments.

Later I will show different types of listening tasks and give examples of listening exercises.

I recommend everyone learn foreign languages, particularly the teachers of Russian as a foreign language who are also native speakers. It’s always beneficial to put yourself in your students’ shoes and gain experience from their perspective. Teachers who stop learning and growing professionally are losing their skills and simply fading away.

Here is some advice from me as a teacher of the Russian and English languages and a person who is fond of learning and constantly doing this:

1. Language cannot be taught, it can only be learned.

This rule doesn’t diminish the role of a teacher in the learning process at all. Believe me, when I had been studying English, I had to deal with different teachers, particularly in high school.

This rule helps us put things in the right places and defines the role of a teacher. And it turns out that a student has to do a job — learn words or read a text. Only he can do this; nobody else can. A teacher serves as an assistant or adviser here. To tell the truth, I know a lot of people who have perfectly mastered a language by themselves.

Have you ever learned how to ride a bicycle or swim? If you sit on the beach and watch how your coach swims, will you learn how to do this? I hope you get what I mean. A language cannot be taught; it can only be learned.

2. Language enters through the ears.

Regular listening is the most important part of language acquisition.

Yes, we need to do writing, reading and speaking, but listening is something we must do frequently and a lot. Before learning, we need to hear a foreign language. Then the issue of pronunciation will be eliminated as we hear a word and repeat its sound. And the issue of reading rules will become irrelevant because we see the word and we read it. Also, the issue of intonation will be resolved, which is rather important for Americans studying Russian, for example, especially in a question. The difference is that in English, questions are frequently formed using auxiliary verbs, whereas in Russian, questions are frequently formed using intonation. You can miss the question if you are waiting for an auxiliary verb in it. Listen carefully to the words and the tone, and learn how to use them in the right way. Memorizing words by ear and then reading them is an effective way to learn to understand speech in a foreign language.

I don’t underestimate the significance of reading and writing, but let’s look at life. There is a huge number of languages in the world that do not have a written form. There are also many people in the world who can’t read or write, and they will never learn. At the same time, they live, raise children, and work. In their lives, everything goes on as usual without the ability to read or write.

Listening and speaking abilities evolve naturally in native speakers. If there are no physical deviations, a child will understand and speak a language without reading and writing skills. Among the four types of speech activity, only reading and writing are taught individually.

I advocate for the balanced development of all types of speech activity. With all things equal, we begin with hearing.

Thus, we remember that language enters through the ears.

3. The head absorbs information as long as you can sit on the soft spot. You know what you are sitting on.

Keeping it in mind, I always plan the lesson in a way so that students can walk around the classroom. We constantly switch activities since starting a new one is equated with rest.

Still, take into account that if your students started walking around, then you should know how to seat them back. This mainly refers to group work. As for individual work, everything is easier.

Alternate activities, move if possible and rearrange objects. Tired of writing? Sing in the language you are learning. Your hands and eyes work first, followed by your ears and voice. A lot more information will enter your head this way, and I hope it will remain there.

Now that you’ve learned my three rules, use them!

Each level includes three tests that are found on the final pages of the Teacher’s Book. Students are to take them after Lessons 5, 10 and 15.

The tests are convenient to estimate since each item in the task is numbered and is one point. Thus, the teacher should only determine whether a student has completed it correctly or not.

You can also purchase tests separately on the sorokam.com website. However, you don’t need to buy them if you already have the Teacher’s Book. These are exactly the same tests, which I have combined into one file, since not all teachers work on the book but all of them use tests from it.

There are several options for how to use them in the lesson. We can apply them as:

A) final tests;

B) additional exercises for reading and writing, because the reporting period in some schools during which students are taking tests commonly doesn’t coincide with that which Soroka proposes;

С) an entry test by means of which a teacher can determine the level of his students and find out if they are prepared to start with Soroka 2, for example, or not. In this case, students should take tests from Soroka 1. If students have successfully passed it, they can commence learning with Soroka 2. If they have made several mistakes, they should take Soroka 1.

The next thing you should take into account is that by testing, we can estimate only reading and writing skills. If you need to check listening or speaking skills, I recommend using other exercises. For example, you may play with the students to see how they respond to your speech.

Another thing, which is worth noticing, is that you should plan a separate day for testing. If you have some time left, it’s better to play than try to combine a test with a regular lesson. Schedule a day and time to conduct them.

Once again, I’d like to point out that we have tests in the course; they are exactly the same as the ones that are sold separately on the sorokam.com website. It is unnecessary to buy them if you already have the Teacher’s Book.

Thus, we should keep in mind that mistakes are growth points, which should be constantly analyzed in order to find a way to prevent them.

All the best! And have good tests!

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.

Turn on English subtitles for this video