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1.1. Content-Based Instruction in a Basic Russian Program Betty Lou Leaver.
Since the eighteenth century, Russians have experimented with various forms of CBI. It is appropriate, then, that the Russian program was among the first to implement CBI at the Foreign Service Institute The Basic Russian Program, designed to take students from ILR level 0 to level 3 in forty-seven weeks of intensive study, proved to be an ideal setting for experimentation with CBI. Leaver describes a two-stage implementation
process: textbook supplementation and textbook development. The former proved highly successful and demonstrated that CBI can be used successfully at elementary levels of foreign language proficiency, even in
languages considered ''difficult." The latter was less successful. The author concludes that perhaps the CBI textbook project should have been an effort to replace the textbook with authentic materials and subject matter textbooks from Russia. The use of authentic materials to the near-exclusion of textbooks has subsequently been found to be successful in other foreign language programs, including programs in Slavic languages.
General references for this chapter are located in the bibliography at the end of this volume.
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) is the training arm of the U.S. Department of State. It consists of three schools the School of Language Studies, the School of Area Studies, and the School of Professional Studies, as well as two centers the Center for Foreign Affairs and the Overseas Briefing Center. The School of Language Studies trains students to proficiency levels in speaking and reading that are set by the posts at which the students will be working. Most students are required to reach levels that the FSI labels as Speaking and Reading described as "minimal professional proficiency." The FSI levels, now more widely known as the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) levels,
FSI students attend class for up to thirty hours a week, for periods ranging from six weeks to forty-seven weeks, depending on the exit proficiency level required and the established difficulty level of the language. Classes are relatively small, typically three to six students per class. The language instructors are all "educated native speakers" of the languages they teach. Most are immigrants; some are second-generation (or "heritage")
speakers.
The Russian Section
The Russian section has traditionally been one of the largest at the FSI, occupying an especially important political position during the 1980sthe last days of the Cold War before the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a result, while resources were usually scarce, there was administrative support for innovation and creativity in Russian language teaching.
The Russian Section was one of the first foreign language departments at the FSI to implement elements of content-based instruction in a beginning program. Three principal reasons why the seeds of CBI found fertile
ground there were: 1) student need and readiness, 2) the unique disposition and skills of the instructors, and 3) the importance of Russian in the international community.
The students, who would soon find themselves living and working overseas, needed to learn a great deal of sociopolitical and cultural information to function successfully at their posts. In 1984, the year that the Russian
Section undertook course revisions, there were many Russian instructors who were skilled and experienced in the use of CBI. Philosophical agreement and enthusiastic mutual support existed among many of the language training supervisors (including three other contributors to this volume Esarey, Stryker, and Ryding), and there was strong administrative support in both the School of Language Studies and the School of Area Studies for the concept of integration of area and language studies. Consequently, it is not coincidental that the CBI program in Russian, as well as the other FSI programs described in this volume, were initiated during this period.
The Rationale
A new Basic Russian Program, a forty-seven-week course aimed at taking students from an ILR level 0 to level 3, was completed in 1983. Although this curriculum was already proficiency-oriented, the needs of the students and the disposition of the faculty facilitated a strong movement in the direction of content-based instruction. As most of the Foreign Service.
Designing the Curriculum
CBI in the Basic Program in Russian was implemented in two stages. The first stage was "textbook supplementation," and the second was "textbook replacement." Even as the textbook supplementation project got under way for the beginners, the Russian Section undertook the development of an entirely content-based Advanced Course for students already at level 3 or 3+ who needed to increase their proficiency to even higher levels. The development of a curriculum for the advanced students had a very positive impact on the Basic Program.
The Advanced Course had a "trickle-down" effect on the development of the content-based components of the Basic Program, in large part due to daily contact between students and instructors and activities in which all the students of the Russian Section participated. In some cases, talented beginners were actually able to enter the Advanced Course near the end of their first year in the Basic Program.
Scope and Sequence of the Program.
Given the experience and needs of Foreign Service Officers, most of the new CBI curriculum was designed around the study of political, economic, military, and cultural, themes or professional concerns such as security, general services, cultural and scientific exchanges. Other topics were specific to the individual needs of students. The themes of Soviet life and world view permeated the entire program.
Materials came from a number of sources. In the mid-1980s, obtaining authentic materials from the Soviet Union was very difficult. Nevertheless, FSI graduates who were stationed in the former Soviet Union supported the plan to develop a CBI curriculum. Many purchased materials out of their own pockets; others found ways to use official budgets to obtain materials. Nearly every week during the 1980s, newspapers, magazines, pictures, and assorted realia arrived by the "State Department Pouch," along with letters wishing the section well in its CBI endeavor. In 1986 an unrelated development facilitated access to authentic video materials. Spearheaded by the enthusiasm of Richard Robin, a professor at George Washington University (GWU), the FSI, the Office of Training and Education, and GWU joined together to establish the Listening Comprehension Exercise Network (LCEN). This network provided Russian teachers across America with exercises to accompany Satellite Communications for Learning (SCOLA) broadcast. These broadcasts became additional tools for teachers to use as they struggled to find enough authentic materials to meet the demands of course supplementation.