Since the beginning of the new millennium, the Russian cinematic landscape has evidenced innovative energy, a diverse spectrum of creative voices, and a production palette ranging from art-house cinema to blockbuster flicks. What are effective ways that Russian language instructors can use this authentic audio-visual material in their classrooms? This webinar will discuss ways of integrating contemporary Russian cinema into Intermediate-Mid to Advanced Russian language courses. Webinar participants will examine specific classroom materials that use select recent films as stimuli for developing students’ Russian language competence in all four modalities. Both content-driven and language-driven learning issues will be discussed. We will consider the ACTFL World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages to discuss cinema as a captivating and thought-provoking framework for deepening students’ cultural knowledge and awareness.

Presenters:

Lynne deBenedette is Senior Lecturer in Russian at Brown University, where she has taught since 1995. She is a co-author, with William J. Comer, Alla Smyslova and Jonathan Perkins, of the first-year Russian language textbook Между нами. At Brown she coordinates the Russian language program and teaches Russian and (occasionally) Czech.

Olga Mesropova is Associate Professor of Russian and Director of the Russian Studies program at Iowa State University. Her research interests include post-Soviet Russian cinema, television, performance, and popular literature, as well as communicative-humanistic approaches to language pedagogy. She is the author of Kinotalk. 21 Century (Routledge, 2020), Faces of Contemporary Russia (Georgetown UP, 2019) and Kinotalk. Russian Cinema for Conversation (Slavica Publishers, 2006). Her other publications have appeared in Slavic and East European Journal, The Russian Review, Canadian Slavonic Papers, and Kinokultura.