Academics

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Russian as a Second Language

Smolny’s RSL faculty are experts in working with international students. Most students find that our instructors' teaching style blends grammar-based methods (most commonly found in the classrooms of Europe and the former Soviet Union) with the more communicative methods popular in the United States. The RSL program at Smolny offers many unique features, some of which are listed below.  

Two-Week Intensive
Prior to the start of the semester, students are required to participate in a two-week Russian Language Intensive that is composed of 20 academic hours of language instruction per week. The intensive has the dual focus of improving students’ conversational skills and preparing them for exposure to academic Russian.

Basic Structure
During the semester, students take three 3-credit Russian language courses that meet twice per week for 1.5 hours per session. Students will also enroll in an additional 2-credit phonetics course that meets 1.5 hours per week. The RSL course of study includes a wide variety of language components, such as grammar, phonetics, conversational Russian, academic reading, and composition. Specific courses will vary depending on students’ language skills.

A Supplement to Academics
In addition to the RSL program, North American students are directly enrolled in academic courses at Smolny, the majority of which are taught in Russian. Students taking courses for credit can expect to read 100–200 pages per week in Russian for each class, to contribute to class discussion in Russian, and to write academic papers in Russian.

As this is often no easy task for students in their first few weeks, RSL at Smolny is designed to closely correspond with the academic courses in which individual students are enrolled. The program will support students’ Russian language coursework, and all instructors have regular office hours for individual consultations in academic reading and writing. Students are encouraged to use these individual meetings to review content and homework from any of their classes.

Individualized Attention
The RSL program employs Smolny students as peer tutors to help North American students prepare their reading and writing assignments for academic courses. Generally, each student has the option of meeting with a tutor for up to two hours a week. Tutors are available to help go over points of particular difficulty, including grammar and linguistic questions.

Heritage speakers of Russian may also find components of the RSL program beneficial. We offer a special language course for heritage speakers, and the RSL team is happy to help them choose the best mixture of Russian language with other Smolny courses.