Synopsis "Read and Think Russian an Intermediate Reader Book One: Politics and Governance"
Read and Think Russian is an intermediate-level textbook with the goal of bringing students' proficiency to the advanced-low level by the end of Book I, and to the advanced-mid level upon the completion of Book II. Both books can be used in a standard one year course or in an intensive, accelerated format.Book I consists of five thematic chapters: General information about Russia, International relations between Russia and other countries, Political life in modern Russia, The Russian economy, and Russian military affairs. Although the focus of the textbook is on reading comprehension, other aspects of language skills such as speaking, listening and writing are presented in a balanced fashion to meet the needs of students who wish to reach an advanced level of proficiency in all modalities according to The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) scale. Each chapter is subdivided into several thematically related sections, each containing a short segment from contemporary Russian social media. Essential vocabulary is located on the margins, enabling students to scan for the main ideas presented in the section. The vocabulary sections activate and expand lexical items related to the topic with emphasis on the word formation, thus increasing students' active and passive vocabulary. Grammar and lexical sections focus mostly on problematic areas for the learners, such as case government, verbs of motion, numerals, verbal adverbs and participles. Gradually, the texts increase in length and difficultly. Some chapters contain segments inviting students to express their own opinions on debatable topics, including those of national and international interest. Numerous illustrations throughout the textbook provide ample opportunity for verbal narratives and a descriptive discourse. Each chapter ends with a written translation assignment to test the students' grasp of the key lexical and grammatical points from the entire unit. The companion website contains audio files aimed at improving learners' listening comprehension and pronunciation, as well as the ability to summarize the main ideas of the audio segments on a variety of topics.
