-------- Original Message -------- Subject: new materials in Russian Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 18:45:11 -0600 From: Shannon Donnally Spasova <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] This announcement from Prof. Benjamin Rifkin about new materials available for intermediate/advanced students of Russian may be of interest. The RAILS (Russian Advanced Interactive Listening Series) Team is proud to announce the completion of its project: 30 web-based advanced-level listening comprehension lessons are completed and ready for your use. These lessons are based on video-taped interviews with prominent Russians (including former presidential candidate Irina Khakamada) and excerpts from documentary films (Solovky Power and The Children of Ivan Kuz'mich). Lessons are accompanied by teachers' manuals and transcripts; students may use the lessons on PC or Macintosh computers with a high-speed Internet connection. Licenses to download and use the lessons based on interviews with prominent Russians are available at no cost for use by students and teachers of Russian at any educational institution in the world. Licenses to download and use the lessons based on excerpts from the documentary films are free to those institutions in North America that have purchased copies of the given films. More details about the licenses and lessons, including images from lessons illustrating the range of activities in the 30 lessons, are available at the RAILS website: http://www.languageinstitute.wisc.edu/rails Contact Dr. Dianna Murphy, Associate Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Language Institute at [log in to unmask] with any questions about the RAILS project. As director of the RAILS Project and principal investigator of the US Department of Education grant that funded it, I also take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge the following individuals, all affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison except as otherwise noted: Dianna Murphy, Project Manager Shannon Donnally Spasova, Project Assistant (Curriculum Developer) Victoria Thorstensson, Project Assistant (Curriculum Developer) Nina Familiant, Project Assistant (Curriculum Developer) Darya Vassina, Editorial Assistant Galina Aksenova, Grinnell College and MKhAT, Middlebury College Jean Hennessey, UW-Madison Slavic Department Administrator Marina Goldovskaya, UCLA, Filmmaker Georg Herzfeld, Gold Films Distributor Olga Kagan, UCLA, External Reviewer Frank Miller, Columbia U., External Reviewer Elena Shchepina, Smolny Institute, Editorial Assistant Richard Robin, George Washington U., Technical Consultant Anna Yatsenko, Reed College, Editorial Assistant Ted Gerber, Content Assistant for Sociology Mark Beissinger, Princeton University, Expert Reviewer for Political Science Content Francine Hirsch, Expert Reviewer for History Content Anne Gorsuch, University of British Columbia, Expert Assistant for History Content Manon VandeWater, Expert Reviewer Assistant for Theater Content Doug Worsham, Media Consultant Ron Cramer, Media Consultant Michelle Glenetski, Web Designer Bahman Zakeri, Programmer, Xivic Communications Bruno Browning, IT Consultant All of us on the RAILS team extend our thanks to colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Letters and Science, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, Language Institute, Division of Information Technology, and L&S Learning Support Services. Reviews of the RAILS lessons will appear soon in professional publications. We encourage all teachers of Russian at the advanced level to consider using these lessons in their courses. Sincerely, Ben Rifkin -- Benjamin Rifkin Professor of Russian and Vice Dean for Undergraduate Affairs College of Liberal Arts, Temple University 1206 Anderson Hall, 1114 W. Berks St. Philadelphia, PA 19122 USA Voice 215-204-1816 Fax 215-204-3731 www.temple.edu/cla www.temple.edu/fgis/rifkin -- ********************************************************************************** LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for Language Learning (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/). Join IALLT at http://iallt.org. Otmar K. Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask]) **********************************************************************************