PILOTING REPORT

on the results of the piloting of the Russian language didactic materials as L2

The overall duration of the piloting phase covered the period of 5 months. It started on 15 of November 2009 and was officially finished on 25 April 2010.

In the piloting activities teachers from the following institutions participated:

• Sofia University “St. Kl. Ohridski”, Sofia, Bulgaria

• University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria

• University “Paisiy Hilendarski”, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

• Institute of Librarianship, Sofia, Bulgaria

• New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria

• Integra Association, Sofia, Bulgaria

• National School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Bulgaria

• Private Russian Language School, Sofia, Bulgaria

• Sofia City School, Sofia, Bulgaria

• E-KU Institute of language and intercultural communication, Nitra, Slovakia

• A. Einstein High School, Bratislava, Slovakia

• Translation Institute at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Presov, Slovakia

• Language centre at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Nitra, Slovakia

• Public Service Language Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania

• University of Leeds, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, UK

• Dartmouth College, Russian Department, Hanover, USA

Totally 26 teachers took part in the piloting phase, of which 17 teachers provided their feedback responding through filling in the project evaluation questionnaires.

All teachers piloted the didactic materials with learners studying Russian as a foreign language.

There follows results of the processing of the teachers’ feedback

As far as the learners’ age is concerned, 70% of teachers participated in the piloting work with young learners aged 18-25 years old and 30% teach adult learners over 25 years old.

With regard to the language competence, most of the learners (82%) involved in piloting were at A2-B1 level according to the Common European Framework for Languages. About 12% of the participated learners were at a high level (B2-C1) and a very small part (nearly 6%) were learners at beginners’ level (A1)

All the teachers respondents confirmed the clarity of the aims of the piloting phase of the project, they did not need an additional help. Only one respondent said that she needed more cultural explanations for certain songs (though did not mention what particular songs she meant).

During the piloting activities the number of song used in the classroom varied. Two respondents did not answer this question; one teacher claimed to have used all the songs, two teachers used one song and one teacher used seven. The rest of the respondents (71%) used between 2 and 6 songs.

All the Russian songs presented on the project website have been used at least once within the piloting phase. As the most frequent songs №1,2,3,4,5 have been reported. It can be supposed that most of the teachers followed the songs in the same order as on the website, while some of them chose songs according to their preferences.

All teachers reported very positive reaction of their students, motivation increase. Some typical examples:

• “The students were looking forward to these lessons”.

• “They were attracted by the idea to study “live” language”.

• “They performed the grammar exercises related to the songs with greater willingness than usually”.

• “My students asked me to use the songs at our lessons also after the end of the piloting”.

• “They liked to learn new things about the Russian culture through songs”.

All teachers responded positively to the question whether the suggested method can be adaptable to their teaching practice.

They stated that the method can be adapted to various learning environments. It can be used equally well in small groups and bigger classes, by both experienced and beginning teachers. The respondents mentioned the better relationship with their students after the piloting, relaxed atmosphere during the “musical” language lessons, which helps better learning results.

100% of respondents consider that the musical approach helps to improve listening and speaking skills. 35% observed improvement of writing skills and 58% noted progress in reading skills.

90% of respondents stated that the LIS method is appropriate for everybody. 10% think it is has a positive influence on students with learning difficulties and unmotivated students. 5% particularly noted the benefit of the methods for teaching immigrants. 10% consider the method can be used with learners with special needs.

All teachers reported favourable contribution of the piloting to their professional development. The following benefits have been mentioned:

• Development of creative attitude to their teaching process;

• Acquaintance with innovative methodologies;

• Good quality of the didactic materials helps the teachers to save time in their lessons preparation;

• It helps teachers to involve in active class work unmotivated or shy students who usually are reluctant to participate;

• Improvement of lesson-planning skills;

• The piloting aroused their interest to using more diverse methods and approaches in teaching.

The teacher were asked whether their piloting activities had been supported by their school management. 95% of the respondents had the management support; 3% responded negatively; 2% ignored the question.

All teachers report positive impact of the LIS method application during the piloting stage. However, no one reported specific assessment measures to evaluate the influence of the approach separately from the other methodologies applied. The teachers respond that the written tests and oral interviews with their students took place during the piloting period but they were not targeted at specifically piloting material.

Empirically the impact is assessed as considerable and favourable. The teachers noted an obvious motivation growth, increased wish of their students to speak and participate in class discussions and other activities. Some teachers also report evident expansion of their students’ vocabulary.

The following recommendations have been given by the Russian language teachers participated in the piloting process:

• To develop further the project and to expand didactic materials on the website;

• To create your own karaoke;

• To expand grammar exercises;

• To make website less academic;

• To present didactic materials in a “fancier” way (e.g. colourful print, more diverse fonts);

• To add old Russian romances, as they present a big part of traditional Russian singing culture;

• To include songs from popular movies;

• To include songs resenting various styles and genres;

• To include more songs of young singers;

• To use songs from Russian cartoons, they are very popular, funny and present very good linguistic material;

• To organizing teacher training seminars to acquaint wider teachers’ audience with this method.

All the respondents confirmed that they will use this method further in their work.

Apart from that, 100% of the participants claimed that they would recommend the method and the didactic materials presented on their website to their colleagues, while about 60% said that they have already recommended the LIS method. Many of the teachers mentioned that the piloting was a subject for their professional discussions.

All the teachers gave a very high appraisal to the project. Among the most common observation are such as teachers’ gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the piloting phase; high quality of the didactic materials; appreciation of the intercultural component integrated through the didactic materials in language teaching.

Below are some quotes illustrating the respondents’ opinion about the project:

• “The content is very good!”

• “The LIS materials provide wonderful possibilities to developing intercomprehension skills and competences: both recordings and texts are easily adjusted to teaching learners to understand another language on the basis of their mother tongue and their prior linguistic experience.  We used lots of “cultural information” encoded’ in lyrics, also other facts about the countries of origins, authors, singers.  The materials are great!!!! Thank you!!!”

• “I am happy that had a chance to participate in this project.”

• “We are grateful for the opportunity to take part in the project and we think that this method will help to make the Russian language popular among learners again.”

• “Keep up good work!”

• “I would like to express my thankfulness to all authors participated in the development of the materials of this innovative project.”

The general conclusion that can be definitely made from the processed results of the piloting phase is that this approach helps to make teaching more dynamic and entertaining, to introduce in an interesting and easy way the new vocabulary, to consolidate grammar structures, to develop language competences, especially listening and speaking skills, to improve pronunciation, to put language learning into intercultural context.