Objective:
The course objective is to enhance students' ability to comprehend authentic materials of lnteragency Language Roundtable (ILR) level 3+ to 4 covering a wide range of topics. These materials are taken from Russian academic sources, Russian Internet, TV and periodicals designed for educated native speakers.
Learning Outcomes:
- Synthesize, analyze, and evaluate information from multiple domains
- Outline and paraphrase the main themes of audio selections to demonstrate listening comprehension
- Recognize humor, irony and emotional overtones
- Grasp sophisticated, idiomatic and unusual sentence constructions found in literary works
- Identify the tone of a text and the author's intent
- Conduct research to better understand cultural and historical references
- As well as present and defend personal opinions on controversial issues found in course materials
General Course Topics:
- Russian mentality and world view
- Contemporary geopolitics
- U.S.-Russian relations
- Russian domestic politics
- Social problems
- Economics
- Nostalgia for Soviet times
- Post-Soviet society
- Rewriting history