Development and Delivery of the Russian for Heritage Speakers Courses Iryna Kozlova Allie Davidson Kirk Davies Carleton University - Canada

Outline of the Presentation 1. Overview of course and student population 2. Rationale for course development 3. Communicative Competence Design process 5. Challenges early on 6. Course activities and assignments 7. Observations during delivery 8. Successes: course designers’ perspective 9. Student feedback 10. Changes for the next year

Courses Russian for Heritage Speakers I – Fall 2015 Russian for Heritage Speakers II – Winter 2016

Who Are Heritage Speakers? Heritage language speakers (HLSs) are those who grew up speaking a language at home, but who cannot read or write in that language, or can, but minimally (Valdes, 2000)

Distinctions between native speakers, foreign language learners and heritage speakers From Kagan, O., & Dillon, K. (2001). Focus on the Heritage Learner. The Slavic and East European Journal, 45(3),

Who are Heritage Speakers? Proficiency Continuum Group 1 High school Grammatical accuracy and breadth of vocabulary close to native speakers Group 2 Junior high In control of complete grammatical system Lexical and significant stylistic gaps Group 3 Born in English- speaking country or immigrated after elementary school in Russia

Goals of the Courses Build literacy skills in heritage language Develop writing and reading skills in a formal academic setting Formalize grammar awareness

Background: Literacy in Digital Age Key words Reading, writing & communication Multimodal communication Multimodal representation of meaning Interaction with digital resources in various ways Expression of meaning in context Authorship Construction of new knowledge (collaboration/interaction)

Rationale for Course Development We needed a framework relevant to teaching these courses online Communicative Competence 2.0 (Lotherington & Ronda, 2014)

Background: Communicative Competence 2.0 (Lotherington & Ronda, 2014) Multimedia competency Collaborative communication Agentive participation Multitasking

Design Process Course ElementsCommunicative Competence Multiple platforms: no one size fits all, none of the technologies meets all needs Multimedia Competence Platforms allow for collaborationCollaborative communication Platforms allow for learning by doing, ownership of the work, creating and sharing content Agentive participation Platforms facilitate multitaskingMultitasking competence

Design Process Three platforms: cuLearn (Moodle, LMS) – Course content including lectures, interactive exercises, quizzes, forums cuPortfolio (Mahara, electronic portfolio system) – writing assignments Carleton Virtual (AvayaLive TM Engage, real-time collaboration ) – Collaborative reading assignments – Interviews for writing assignments

Challenges Early On Not a homogeneous group – Appropriateness of content Assessment of students’ eligibility to enroll – Diagnostic test? – Interview? Content: resources? – two books on the market

Textbook and Course Resources Text: Kagan, O.E., Kudyma, A.S. (2012). Let’s write Russian: express course for bilingual adults. St. Petersburg: Zlatoust. Online Dictionary and Reference Materials: Dictionary (Толковый словарь Ушакова) / Grammar site (Справочно- информационный портал ГРАМОТА.РУ)

Example of a Module in cuLearn

cuLearn Activities Activities Course Content and Interactive Exercises Video lectures & text-based explanations Studystack exercises Self-check exercises Dictation Reading Comprehension Writing Practice Forums (not graded) Summative assessment Quizzes Competencies Multimedia competency Collaborative communication Agentive participation Multitasking

cuPortfolio Assignments: RUSS 3015 Assignments 5 short writing assignments 2 long writing assessments Competencies Multimedia competency Collaborative communication Agentive participation Multitasking

cuPortfolio

Questions: 1.Does the use of multimodal information (images and videos) have any impact on students’ writing? 2.Adding multimedia files – are we teaching writing or are we teaching how to add multimedia links?

cuPortfolio Students who added images and videos: Cohesive genre Included more details Related more to what they wrote Read through Russian texts finding information on the internet Used multimodal language resources which required them to transfer information from text and auditory mode to their own text; Language processing (grammar + vocabulary) Input to output

3D Virtual Carleton

3D Virtual Carleton Assignments Assignments Reading Assignments: Ordering passages Short written summaries MC comprehension questions Competencies Multimedia competency Collaborative communication Agentive participation Multitasking

Observations During Delivery Technology Time Developing courses in such a way that student could feel teacher presence Developing courses in such a way that that student could exhibit social presence

Successes Student participation Revisiting course materials Students’ responsiveness to feedback

Challenges and successes: students’ feedback cuLearn: “Interactive exercises and activities, following a lecture are great. More exercises are beneficial to fully acquire the material.” cuPortfolio: “This tools [cuPortfolio] allows for creative writing and the use of images to express your writing in greater detail. This process can be very fulfilling and also beneficial to practice one's writing and grammar skills.” Carleton 3D: “Take advantage of collaborating with your peers. You can learn a lot from working with them with regards to reading and writing.”

Changes for Next Year Make distribution of content more even throughout the first course Go slower at the beginning of the course Changes to 3D reading activities – Activities closely linked to environment – Make it worthwhile to use Carleton 3D for students - In the first course - 6 quizzes instead of 12 - Add more interactive exercises

References Godwin-Jones, R. (2015). Contributing, Creating, Curating: Digital Literacies for Language Learners. Language Learning & Technology 19(3), 8–20. Retrieved from Hafner, C. A., Chik, A., & Jones, R. H. (2015). Digital literacies and language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 19(3), 1–7. Retrieved from Kagan, O., & Dillon, K. (2001). Focus on the Heritage Learner. The Slavic and East European Journal, 45(3), Lotherington, H., & Ronda, N. (2014). 2B or Not 2B? From Pencil to Multimodal Programming: New Frontiers in Communicative Competencies. CALICO Journal, 14, Kern, R., & Schultz, J. M. (2005). Beyond orality: Investigating literacy and the literary in second and foreign language instruction. Modern Language Journal, 89, 381–392. Martin, A. (2005). DigEuLit-a European framework for digital literacy: A progress report. Journal of eLiteracy, 2, 130–136. "The Plurality of Literacy and its implications for Policies and Programs" (PDF). UNESCO Education Sector Position Paper: "The Plurality of Literacy and its implications for Policies and Programs" (PDF). UNESCO Education Sector Position Paper: retrieved from on January 5, Valdés, G. (2000b). Teaching heritage languages: An introduction for Slavic-language-teaching professionals. In O. Kagan & B. Rifkin (Eds.), Learning and teaching of Slavic languages and cultures: Toward the 21st century (pp ). Bloomington, IN: Slavica.