The Course

 

Ruslan Russian 1 and 2 make up a two-part course in everyday Russian authored by John Langran and Natalya Veshnyeva. In its original form it is contained in two books accompanied by cassette tapes and audio CDs.

 
         
     

The course is the market leader for Russian language training for adults in the UK, and is also in regular use in schools, universities and sixth form colleges.

The lessons reflect life in Russia today. They tell the story of Lyudmila's friendships with Vadim in Moscow, Ivan from Saransk, and Peter from England, and there is the mystery of Ruslan, which is not revealed until the end!

 
 
         
     

The materials have now been converted by John Langran and Mike Beilby to a computer-based format. Full multimedia versions of Ruslan Russian 1 and 2 are available on two CDROMs.

 
         
     
 
     

 

  
     

The CDROMs each contain an introduction, ten lessons and a resources section. The lessons consist of dialogues and are supported by clear grammar explanations, exercises, and high quality recordings.

 
         
     
  We also hear the "typical foreigner" who struggles to understand what is going on around him!
 
     
 
     

The CDROMs are entitled 'Ruslan Russian 1' and 'Ruslan Russian 2' and have been produced by John Langran and Mike Beilby. They are multimedia versions of the course books.

Copies can be obtained from Ruslan Ltd. and from all good bookshops

  
       
  The lessons  

The lessons each open with a set of dialogues which follow the story. At the beginning Peter arrives from England, collects his baggage at the aitport and finds his hotel.

  
         
     


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The student can listen to the dialogues, replay phrases and read their translation. The general prinicle is that you click the left mouse button to hear sound and the right mouse button to obtain a translation.

There are also links to the vocabulary and information sections which popup over the screen.

 
         
     
 

In the vocabulary on the second CD-ROM you can hear the individual words spoken by native speakers.

  
 
       
  Grammar  

The grammar section introduces points of grammar that arise on the dialogue pages.

 
         
       
         
     

There are extracts from the dialogues and further examples.

 
         
  Exercises  

There are several types of exercise, for example gap-fills, word matching, grouping words by meanings, fitting endings, and selecting appropriate descriptions. Students are given immediate feedback.

  
         
       
         
     

There are usually between 10 and 20 exercises in each lesson.

  
         
  Practice  

The practice section contains activity pages which extend the exercises. For example, some of the pages contain gap-fills and picture identifications.

  
         
       
         
     

There are usually between 10 and 20 practice pages in each lesson. Always in the last practice exercise the student has to listen to a paragraph and answer questions.

  
         
The Project  

The production of the two CDROMs took about 2 years. It started with an initial design in which the book materials were reproduced in Asymetrix Toolbook, but it soon became apparent that the opportunities for interaction were great. As a result the exercises and practice pages were completely redesigned and the material expanded.

Drag-and-drop exercises feature widely throughout the lessons, for there is no direct use of the keyboard for input. The interaction is direct and there is feedback in the form of popup text and pictures.

The Ruslan Russian 1 CD-ROM won the of DTI Languages for Export New Technologies Award 1999 (West Midlands).

John Langran has since gone on to develop versions in different languages, for example in French, German, Dutch and Swedish. He has also extended the course and written a book, Ruslan Russian 3, covering more advanced material. The book is available on a multimedia CDROM. See his web-site for further details.

http://www.ruslan.co.uk

The Ruslan Russian 1, 2 and 3 CD-ROMs can be used from a stand-alone PC equipped at least to the following specification: 486 66MHz processor 8 MByte RAM, Windows 95/98, NT or XP, 4x speed CDROM drive, 256-colour graphics and Soundcard with Windows MCI interface.