Posted on

Funding: US-Russia Partnership Projects

Deadline: January 23, 2020

Eurasia Foundation’s US-Russia Social Expertise Exchange Program (SEE) invites organizations in the United States and Russia to submit proposals for collaborative projects in one or more of the following areas: Social Inclusion, Technology and Innovation for Social Good, Social Entrepreneurship, and Youth Engagement. SEE accepts applications that are jointly developed by at least one U.S. and one Russian partner organization and offers funding up to $43,000 for the implementation of joint initiatives.

Applications are due on January 23, 2020 by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. 

For additional information, please visit: https://www.usrussiasocialexpertise.org/partnership-projects-post-2/ 

Posted on

Resource: Russian Language Learning Podcast

Russian Language podcast designed specifically for Novice and Intermediate learners of Russian.

The podcast features short audios with transcripts recorded by native speakers of Russian who talk about themselves, their families, hobbies, etc. This free podcast is available here: http://russianrocket.libsyn.com and also on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify.

A curated list of other resources for independent learning can be found here: https://dontforgetrussian.weebly.com/connect-to-people.html

Posted on

Resource: Research Guides

To facilitate and encourage research abroad, SRAS recently launched a series of guides on GeoHistory, a part of their Family of Sites. 

Our guides include a general introduction: https://geohistory.today/introduction-russian-archives/

They also have several individual guides. These currently include AVPRI, AVP, GARF, RGASPI, RGALI, and The Russian State Library. You can view all current entries here: https://geohistory.today/category/archives/

As you likely already know, bureaucratic requirements in Russia tend to change quite regularly. Therefore, they’d like to ask you to inform them of anything that you know of that might need to be updated in these guides. They are bullet-pointed for quick review of issues like documents needed for a propusk, maximum delo that can be requested at one time, and overall ease of entry and working within the archive, for instance.

If you have researched at an archive or facility not listed here, they’d also love to include that facility in our list of guides. You can find a rubic to fill out here: https://geohistory.today/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Archive-Rubric.docx

If you have a good picture of the facility (inside or outside) they’d love to see them for any new entry – or to update their old entries.

Any questions/updates can be directed to jwilson@sras.org .

Posted on

Lang. Training/Resource: Reality Czech Online Textbook and Curriculum (UT Austin)

Reality Czech is a next generation openly licensed Czech textbook and curriculum currently under development by Dr. Christian Hilchey from the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies in collaboration with the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL) at the University of Texas at Austin.

All materials will be freely available online under a Creative Commons license to any university or individuals who wish to use or adapt them.

Posted on

Resource/Lang. Training: Instagram with Russian Grammar/Vocabulary

This instagram posts weekly challenges of Russian grammar/vocabulary with free exercises supported with Russian/Soviet art visuals. They also post Instagram stories with fun Russian grammar in a trivia quiz style.  For lower levels of Russian (mostly first and second years).

The account name is kto_smeliy, or you can follow this link: Екатерина (@kto_smeliy) • Instagram photos and videos

Posted on

Resource/Conference: Live Stream of The Scholarly World of Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov: Assessments, Reassessments, Reflections (UCLA)

Event Date: November 15, 2019

For those of you who are interested, the conference announced below will be live-streamed on the Facebook page of the UCLA Slavic Department.
Please use your personal Facebook account to search our department page: UCLA Department of Slavic, East European & Eurasian Languages & Cultures.  Please contact Deanna De La Hunt at deanna@humnet.ucla.edu should you have any questions or issues accessing the Facebook page.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
The UCLA Dept. of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures and UCLA’s Program in Indo-European Studies are pleased to announce an international conference, “The Scholarly World of Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov: Assessments, Reassessments, Reflections,” on the occasion of the 90th year of his birth and the second anniversary of his passing. The conference will take place November 15, 2019 at the Faculty Center, UCLA Campus. Morning sessions will be devoted to Vyacheslav Ivanov’s contributions to Indo-European studies and general linguistics, and afternoon sessions – his contributions to semiotics of culture and poetics. Guest speakers include:

Continue reading “Resource/Conference: Live Stream of The Scholarly World of Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov: Assessments, Reassessments, Reflections (UCLA)”
Posted on

Resource: Czech-Language Interview re: Fall of Communism

On the occasion of the thirty years’ anniversary of the fall of
communism, we have broadcast, on the Czech cable TV station
Regionalnitelevize.cz, exclusive interviews with Petr Pithart, the first
Prime Minister of the post-communist Czech Republic and a close
collaborator of Czechoslovak President Václav Havel:

(The interviews are in Czech with English subtitles)

https://youtu.be/eP7b0Jhzlnk
Britské listy Interview 232: Petr Pithart: 1968 was the only time when
I believed that the world might be better

https://youtu.be/QRm6tYbPFg4
Britské listy Interview 233: Petr Pithart: Why were the Prague Spring
politicians such cowards?

https://youtu.be/D6WSHQ1Wjwo
Britské listy Interview 234: Petr Pithart: Post-invasion decades in
Czechoslovkia: An era of timelessness

See also:

Britské listy Interview 220: Petr Pithart about current threats to
democracy: ” I never thought that the past was so powerful”.

Posted on

Webinar: A Russian Bridge Course: Navigating the Transition from Language-Driven to Content-Driven Courses

Event Date: November 19, 2019

Led by Lynne deBenedette
November 19 at 5:30pm EST

Register now

In this webinar, Lynne deBenedette will discuss how to create a course for learners who are roughly at the ACTFL Intermediate Mid proficiency level that focuses both on content learning and language learning in a balanced way.  In the more commonly taught languages these courses are sometimes referred to as “bridge courses” –when students transition from lower-level language courses (organized around a textbook) to upper-level courses that primarily focus on content materials (films and / or readings). deBenedette will consider how much content material is practical at this level, how to choose it, and how to assess student learning of that content.  Drawing on the content materials selected, she will discuss how to choose language forms to focus on. The webinar will examine in detail examples of classroom materials to see how the content-learning is counterbalanced with focused work on language form, and how classroom tasks are sequenced to guide learners from input to output.  The webinar will conclude with a list of principles for implementing this approach with a range of content topics.

Lynne deBenedette is Senior Lecturer in Russian at Brown University, where she has taught since 1995. She is a co-author, with William J. Comer, Alla Smyslova and Jonathan Perkins, of the first-year Russian language textbook Между нами (http://www.mezhdunami.org). At Brown she coordinates the Russian language program and teaches Russian and (occasionally) Czech.

https://actr.wildapricot.org/event-3624560

  • The webinar is free for current ACTR members ($15 fee for non-members)
  • All registered participants will receive access to the webinar recording. Register even if you cannot attend the webinar live. 
  • Certificate of participation will be emailed upon request
Posted on

Resource/Call for Submissions: Language Learning and Technology Journal

We are very happy to announce that our special issue of Language Learning & Technology on New Developments in Virtual Exchange in Foreign Language Education (Volume 23, Number 3) is now available at http://www.lltjournal.org.

Please visit the LLT website and be sure to sign up to receive your free subscription if you have not already done so.

Also, we welcome your contributions for future issues. If you have questions about this process, or wish to submit a manuscript, please check our guidelines for submission at http://www.lltjournal.org/submission-guidelines/.