Teaching English in Russia

1
Teaching English in Russia

• Zoya Proshina
• Institute of Foreign Languages,
• Far Eastern National University,
• Vladivostok, Russia

2
Language Situation in Russia

• Over 100 languages
• Russian state / national language
• 30 other official language (in autonomous
  republics regions)

3
Sakha Autonomous Republic

• 2 national languages - Russian and Yakut
• 5 official languages Even, Evenki, Yukagir,
  Chukot, and Dolgan
• 1 official working language English since 2000

4
Historical context

• An educated person
• well-read
  
• foreign
  languages
• 
  (A.Pavlovskaya. History of Foreign Language
  Education in Russia.)

5

• 19th century French
• 1900-1950 German
• Since 1950s EFL at secondary schools
• Self-sufficiency in the closed society
• Perestroika EL boom
• Economic needs

6
Educational context

• 19th century Private education learn to speak
  by speaking (nurses, governesses)
• 1950-70s Primary goal reading translation. FL
  as an outlet, gate to the outside world.
• 1980s-until now intercultural communication in
  oral and writing forms

7
Preschools

• Non-mandatory classes
• 5-year-olds and earlier

8
Secondary Schools

• General Comprehensive Secondary School (525 hrs /
  3 hrs a week)
• 5th -11th grades (normal)
• 1st 11th grades (experimental)
• Intensive English Schools (4-6 hrs /wk)
• 2nd -11th grades

9

• Foreign Language
• is a mandatory subject
• at school,
• English being one of them.

10
Interview of R.Line, Great Britain Ambassador to
Russia

• Today about
• 85 of Russian students study English in cities,
  
• 70 - in towns,
• 60 in villages.

11
Teachers

• Local
• Peace Corps volunteers (1992-2002)
• At universities occasional EL grantees and
  fellows

12
Model of ELT

• European part of Russia
• British English

• Asian part of Russia
• American English

13
5-7 grade curriculum in FL
14
8-9 grade curriculum in FL
15
Final Exams

• National unified exam
• Listening
• Reading
• Vocabulary and Grammar
• Writing
• Speaking
• Centralized test
• School tests

16
University Enrollment

• Entrance exam for humanities majors
• National unified exam
• Centralized test
• Tutoring
• Preparatory training courses

17
Universities

• The Bologna process diploma convertability
  adapting to Europe
• Three types of diplomas
• Bachelor degree (4 yrs)
• Specialist (5 yrs)
• Master degree (6 yrs)

18
(No Transcript)
19
English for Majors

• Groups of 10-15 students
• 4-5-6 years
• 10-14 hours/week
• Aspects
• Speaking
• Listening
• Reading (home-reading individual reading)
• Writing
• Grammar
• Vocabulary
• Rhetorics
• Linguistics (General L., Theory of E.Grammar,
  E.Phonetics, E.Lexicology, E.Stylistics,
  Pragmatics, Translation Theory)

20
English for Non-Majors

• Groups of 15-40 students
• 2 years optional 2 years
• 4 hrs/week
• Non-aspective T/L
• Content-based education

21
Post-university degree

• FL exam
• reading / translating
• speaking on the research theme
• no writing

22
Functional context

• Inter-economic
• transnational companies
• business with foreign partners
• Intercultural
• information about other countries
• information about Russia

23
Intercultural usage of English
24
Intermediary translationof Chinese, Japanese,
and Korean words from English into Russian
Intermediary translation is translation from an
English variety used by non-native speakers,
i.e. from ELF. e.g., Chinese - China English -
Russian
25
China Daily

• The Sino-Russian Suifenhe-Bogelanqinei Trade
  Complex
• Bogelanqinei Pogranichnyi
• B
• L
• Q
• -gel-

26
Difficulties of Intermediary Translation

• Irregular spelling
• Spelling variations
• From English or from Japanese?

• Qigong
• Xianggang
• Tai-chi / tai-ji
• Chikung / qigong
• Tao / Dao
• Hangul / hangeul
• Sushi
• C??? / ????

27
Course of East-Asian Englishes at FENU

• Pluricentricity of English and basics of the
  World Englishes theory
• Brief description of Chinese, Japanese, and
  Korean Englishes, their development, status, and
  specifics.
• Systems of Romanization in China, Japan, Korea
• Correlations between Cyrillic and Romanized
  writing systems that exist in these Asian
  countries.
• Asian loan words in English, their assimilation.
• Translating texts on Asian cultures

28
Moscow State University

• School of Foreign Languages.
• 2001 new speciality Russia (Department of
  Regional Studies)
• Those who know foreign languages have not
  studied Russia enough.
• (Prof. Svetlana Ter-Minasova)

29
St. Petersburg SchoolVictor V. Kabakchi

• GLASNOST political "the policy or practice
  of more open consultative government of
  information, esp. in the Soviet Union since 1985
  Russ. ?????????, literally, publicity,
  openness." (OEED)
• ???? ?????? ?????? ????? ? ??????? ???????????
  ????? ? ?????? ??????????? (OED 1972), ???????
  ??? ???? ?????? ????.
• ?. g. The world, having learned the word
  glasnost last year, now twisted its tongues
  around perestroika. (Newsweek 04.01.1988 summing
  up the year of 1987) The U.S.S.R. that
  mystery inside an enigma that so fascinated
  Americans in this Year of Glasnost is
  celebrating its seventh decade... (Life Jan 1988)
• As well known as that word has become around the
  world, there is still no English translation that
  fully carries its Russian meaning. It is usually
  translated as 'openness', but it is both more
  than that and less than that. (Gorbachev 1988, p.
  145)
• GLASNOST and PERESTROIKA
• Perestroika and glasnost, glasnost and
  perestroika. They will still be secure in the
  vocabularies of all the languages of the world
  long after the children of the Soviet Union and
  its satellites have begun to ask 'Mummy, who was
  Lenin?' or for that matter 'Mummy, who was
  Gorbachev?' (Keith Waterhouse 'Just Two Big
  Words', Daily Mail 22.08.1991)

30
Natalya Yuzefovich, Khabarovsk
31
Englishization of Russian

• Direct borrowings
• Syntactic calques
• Hybrids
• Corporative mixture

32
Direct Borrowings into Russian

• Business promotion, advertiser, head-hunter,
  shopping, management
• Communication internet, web-design, on-line,
  display, fax, computer, mass media
• Administration speaker, grant
• Policy electorate, consensus, pluralism
• Mass media entertainment talkshow, daily,
  publicity, DJ, rap, hip-hop, single
• Food cheeseburger, pepsi, cola, french-fries

33
Syntactic calquesN N

• ????????-????
• ???????-???
• ???-?????????????
• ????-????????

34
Hybrids

• ???less by Sergei Minayev
• ?????????? (rumor-maker),
• ???????????? (priceless)

35
Russification

• ?????
• ???????
• ????????
• ???????

36
Corporative Mixing Jargon

• ?????? ??????? ???????????? ??????? ??
  ???????????? ???????????? ??????. ? ?????????,
  ??????????? ??????. ?????? ??????, ? ?? ??????,
  ??? ??????? ?????????, ?????? ????? ??????????
  ??????? ? ???????. ? ???? ?? ?????? ? ???????.
  ???????????? ????????? ?? ?????? ????? ???? ?
  ??????? ??????????, ???????? ??? ???? ??? ??
  ???????.

• HRs are bound to motivate sale agents to develop
  communica-tion skills. Presenta-tion skills, in
  particular. Skills, not knowledge, as somebody
  may think, enhance success in business. And it is
  not just profit that matters. You can benefit
  from work by getting mere satisfaction which all
  of us lack so much.

37
Nativization of English

• New words and collocations
• unpleasantries
• home task ( home assignment),
• foreign passport (for traveling abroad)
• state university (national university)
• heroine mother (having 5 and more children)
• Palace of Culture (community center)
• Candidate of Science (Russian PhD)

38
Change of meaning

• scientific conference (academic research)
• hostess (geishawaitress)
• Gymnasium (type of school)
• New Russians (rich)
• social work (unpaid work)

39
Russian mentality in English syntax

• Imperative Read the text.
• Over-emphasized negation Do not disappear (Stay in touch). I think I cannot do that. (dont think I can do that.)
• Double negation It is not possible not to see
  the complexity of the problem.
• Affirmative and negative disagreement Yes, I
  wont be able to do it. No, you can call me any
  time.

40
Russian students preference of the variety of
English to study
41
Faculty preference for varieties of English to be
taught
42
Facultys self-labeling of the variety of their
English
43

• Russia English acrolect
• Russian English mesolect
• Ruslish basilect

44
Deviations mistakes?

• Deviation is the result of a productive process
  which marks the typical variety-specific
  features and it is systematic within a variety,
  and not idiosyncratic.
• (Kachru 1983 81)