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.

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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