Learning Goals
Upon graduation, Russian majors will have achieved a sufficient level of cultural competency to be able to engage directly in an appropriate and sophisticated way with contemporary Russian society.
They will possess a basic knowledge of Russian history and culture, be familiar with the most important works of its literature and cinema, and have an understanding of the range and contradictions of its politics.
In terms of the language, majors will have completed an intensive program of language learning that will permit them to operate at an advanced level of Russian, using authentic language in real-life situations. Specifically, they will be able to do the following:
- Listening: understand the main ideas and most details of face-to-face conversations, interviews, short lectures on familiar topics, and news items and reports primarily dealing with factual information.
- Reading: read with understanding and follow the essential points in most texts. They can comprehend the essential information to make appropriate inferences and recognize different uses of language and styles in a variety of texts.
- Speaking: speak in most social situations, narrate and describe in some detail, communicate facts, and speak casually about topics of current public and personal interest. In special fields of competence, they can support opinions, explain, and hypothesize.
- Writing: write about a variety of topics with sufficient precision. On topics relating to particular interests and special fields of competence, our seniors are capable of sophisticated composition.