Mistakes are Growth Points

All students make mistakes in class — take it easy, this is part of life.

When there are no mistakes, it means that the student knows everything and no longer needs a teacher.

Personally, I love when my students make the mistakes. I listen to them carefully and analyze them. We need mistakes. Mistakes help us understand where to go next. We see what material has been well-learned and what material still needs to be worked on.

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Soroka. Russian language for children

Grandmothers Can Get Involved

A modern grandmother is not a little old lady in a headscarf. A modern grandmother seeks recipes on the Internet, watches films on YouTube, drives a personal car to do the shopping, and sends messages to her grandsons while dying her hair at a hairdressers’ or getting a pedicure. A 21st-century grandmother can also wear a headscarf, anytime she wants — as a turban on her head, for instance.

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Soroka. Russian language for children

Russian Alphabet at Our First Lessons

Last time we looked at the first lesson of the Soroka Course and I told you how to perform our first lesson, how we repeat words, how we read them and how we do the exercises in the first few pages of the Student’s Book and the Activity Book. As soon as we finish these exercises, we will move on.

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Soroka. Russian language for children

How to Read at the First Class?

Many parents have concerns about their children reading at the first class. They open the Student’s Book, see the words written there and are shocked: “My child cannot read this!”

That is true, your students cannot read in Russian yet, but it is not necessary. All the future exercises are geared toward them beginning to learn the Russian letters and the reading rules of the Russian language. Therefore, it is important to use common sense and what we have just learned during the lesson.

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Soroka. Russian language for children

Why Do We Need Dictations?

Dictations are an excellent practice for our students. Dictations require a lot of skills: You need to hear, recognize, write — look how many skills are worked on simultaneously!

I usually carry out dictations at the end of the class, before the final game. By this time my students have already reviewed the words necessary for the dictation.

There are different types of dictations. There are simple dictations. A teacher dictates and a student writes. You can dictate words and sentences. When you start the Soroka Course, you dictate words only.

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Soroka. Russian language for children

Working with Audio Files

What are the audio files for the Student’s Book for? How do you work with them? I am going to reveal secrets of experienced teachers.

I would like to start with the fact that we begin to learn a language through our ears. As I was taught: “Language is initiated through our hearing.” This is a natural process.

When a child lives in a linguistic environment, he constantly hears the language, which is spoken by people around him. Then a child starts to recognize words and to repeat them. His speech starts to form in his native language (the language of his environment).

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Soroka. Russian language for children

Teacher’s Book Helps

Last time, I talked about how the Teacher’s Books are an important component of my “Soroka: Russian for Kids” course. Today I will talk more about this topic.

In addition to helping students learn Russian not just by reading but also by listening, there are also three tests at each level of the course. If you don’t need these tests, you can use them as additional worksheets.

However, you need these tests. First of all, they are a good way to review everything. Secondly, the tests I offer are easy to grade, since these tests have the сlear criteria for grading. There are only 20 points.

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Soroka. Russian language for children