Seminars

19-22 May 2011 in Barcelona took place the fifth seminar on the project "Sputnik" under the "Grundtvig" program.

The seminar was hosted by Vladimir Gusev, director of the Pushkin Center of Russian Language and Culture. The participants of the seminar were hosted in the conference room Husa Barcelona Hotels.

The seminar was attended by the heads of centers and associations, as well as students from Slovenia, UK, France, Spain and the Netherlands. In total, the seminar was attended by 25 people.

The program included:

• Lessons for students (level 2) using the method developed by the Spanish partner;
• A roundtable on products prepared by each partner;
• A cultural program.

The planned seminar program has been fully implemented.

At the beginning Vladimir Gusev welcomed all the participants, introduced the delegations and presented the seminar program.

The project coordinator, Igor Zhukovsky briefly spoke about the project developments during these last two years.

Students were split in two groups and worked with the teachers of the Centre Carmen Pena and Andrew Kozintsev.

The lessons were organized on the basis of the new teaching tool "Europe. Cities and People ". Students from levels 1 and 2 have been suggested to make some exercice from the manual “Barcelona. Ramblas”, dialogues, skits, walk down the main street of Catalonia with the teacher and answer to questions on the history of Las Ramblas.

The main objective of the "round table" was summing up the work which has been accomplished for 2 years and presenting the product of each partner as part of the tool kit "Sputnik."

During the roundtable Vladimir Gusev, presented a teaching manual "Europe. Cities and People", consisting of texts about Spain. Teachers were particularly interested in the texts about the concerts of our compatriots in Spain, Leonid Sobinov and Fyodor Chaliapin. According to Mr. Gusev this work could be a good start for a future step involving the other partner countries.

Antonina Zhukovskaya, Project Coordinator and Director of the Russian language courses, "Russia-Aquitaine" (Bordeaux, France), introduced the methodological product "Russian language in everyday situations." Students have been actively involved in the process of elaboration of the method. The main element of the method - basic abstracts. They contribute to a better memorization and reproduction in spoken process.

Director of the Russian language courses in London, Dmitry Antonov and his colleagues developed a "data bank" which includes 450 examples from Russian classical and modern literature on the various rules of grammar. The database uses the Excel program that facilitates the search of examples.

The group of authors from the language school "Lingvarus," led by director Marina Bilash, has developed a manual for students named "Business trip to Russia," which was successfully presented in Ljubljana.

All developed products will be published by the Dutch partners on a specifically developed electronic portal. According to Olga Shterenshis, this tool will address teachers of Russian Language as a foreign language as well as students.

Dutch partners were asked to elaborate a final product for submission to the Agency. All partners will present their reporting materials during the final seminar in Cyprus (until June 20).

Workshop ended with a festive dinner and the show of "Flamenco".

Gregory Pasternak (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) has prepared a press release on the results of the seminar