Methods

Our teaching programs have been specially developed for foreign students of different language skills including those who have none. The main principle underlying the whole system is the principle of communication. We base our system on the assumption that it is the ability to use the language for communication and not the mere knowledge of its linguistic system that has to be mastered. As a result we focus our attention on stable practical language skills rather than theoretical knowledge and in doing so we make sure those skills build up in our students at both conscious and subconscious levels. In our classes you will never see words and grammar rules being thoughtlessly memorized nor will any professional linguistic terms burden your mind getting in the way of your understanding. To speak and understand a foreign language means to be engaged in an activity of a special kind. Therefore we believe that it is not learning that we have to deal with in the very first place but we should rather be talking about mastering verbal activity that takes place in Russian language. This kind of activity can only be organized through solving training communicational tasks that will make it possible for the student to maximally adjust to real-life communication. All the above taken into account, we consider creating a situation that would be maximally effective at stimulating the psychological mechanisms of language learning, our main objective in organizing the teaching process.

Another principle we adhere to is that of maximally individualizing our teaching approach. It is known that specific cognitive structures responsible for information processing that form in human mind are highly individualized and cannot be brought under control of our conscious mind. To make the learning most efficient we have to be aware that there is no such thing as an average student. Every single human being has a unique inner world with its own kind of memory and cognitive strategies. Consequently, the teaching strategies we employ are numerous enough to let us take every individual student into account even at our group classes.

Among the principal goals to be achieved in the process of every intensive language course is stable audial perception of spoken Russian. The peculiarity of Russian language originates from the fact that multiple transformations a word undergoes depending on its function in a sentence alters its phonetic profile to such an extent that it becomes rather hard to distinguish in the flow of speech. It is not uncommon in practice that a student who has already mastered considerable speaking skills and proved very good at understanding his/her teacher sometimes fails to understand a native Russian speaker in real situation. That is why the language materials we use in the very first place include dialogues, situations and role-plays that imitate real-life communication as closely as possible. It is for the same reason that we practice the extensive use of audio and video facilities.