How to motivate children living in the USA to learn and preserve Russian - ForumDaily
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How to motivate children living in the United States to learn and maintain Russian language

Photo: facebook / book reader in america

For the first time this year, the children's literary competition “Kniguru” was held in the United States. It was attended by 24 schoolchildren from Russian-speaking families living in different states of the country, including students from the Pushkin School in Manhattan (Pushkin Academy of Russian Heritage), Russian Children Studio in New York and the Garden City School in Maryland. According to the terms of the competition, participants wrote and filmed video reviews of books and stories by laureates of the Russian literary award “Kniguru”.

As a result of the jury’s voting in the category “Individual Review” in the younger age group (7-10 years old), first and second places were won by New York residents Andrei Karpovich (10 years old) and Katya Dudnik (10 years old), respectively, and third place went to Alyssa Mohamed (9 years old) from Parma, Ohio. In the “Individual Review” category for the senior group (11-15 years old), the jury awarded first place to Anna Zagrai (11 years old) from Socorro, New Mexico, second place went to Elya Lindeman (13 years old) from New York, and third place went to Nikolai Zasukhin (15 years old) from Cleveland, Ohio.

In the “Collective Review” category, the winners were 9-year-old Varvara Zasukhina and her mother (Cleveland) for their original review, made in the form of a crossword puzzle.

The second place in this category was given to young residents of New York Dasha Genkin (11 years) and Sabine Cherner (10 years) for a video review.

The winners of the “Book in America” competition received laureate diplomas, books with autographs of writers, as well as access codes to the online library Bookmate.

Based on the voting results, the jury especially noted the active participation in the “Books in America” competition of the Zasukhin family from Cleveland - mother Victoria and her two youngest children Varvara and Nikolai.

Photos from personal archive

They sent four reviews at once. Jury member of the “Book in America” competition, journalist and writer Natalya Slavina spoke with Victoria Zasukhina, a Russian language teacher from Cleveland, about how to motivate children living in the United States to learn and preserve their native language, as well as about the differences in teaching language and literature in America and Russia.

— Victoria, both of your children took part in the “Book” competition: 15-year-old Nikolai and 11-year-old Varvara. They are already teenagers, and, probably, studying Russian, reading books in Russian increasingly depends on their mood and attitude. Do your children study willingly or are they doing you a favor?

“I’ll tell you honestly, the eldest son doesn’t have much desire, he’s at a difficult age and, of course, this plays a role. But, in general, I am calm for him - Nikolai will not lose his Russian language, because he already speaks competently, uses cases and genders correctly. He reads quite a lot in Russian, but, however, refuses to write. But the youngest daughter, unfortunately, is slowly forgetting the Russian language, cases, and written language. I see and worry about this, but I am determined - I will definitely work with her on punctuation and spelling. Moreover, Varvara reads Russian with great pleasure.

— Why is it so important to preserve the language? Do you understand that in one or two more generations, and your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, if they do not go to Russia, will be completely assimilated into American society and will no longer remember Russian? And why did you decide to participate in the Book in America competition?

— For me, participation in the competition is a tribute to respect and love for Russian literature and my native language. We live here in a foreign country and children must preserve the language, remain its native speakers. I myself speak Russian, and it is unlikely that I will ever be able to truly adapt to think and think freely in English. The Russian language is my picture of the world, my home, my mentality, my way of thinking. And if my grandchildren think differently, then of course I will be very upset. I would like us to be able to think the same way with them, so that we have a common language house and mentality. In addition, high-quality bilingualism and even trilingualism provides great advantages for a person in life.

— Why, in your opinion, is the Russian language disappearing so quickly, even in those families where both parents speak it?

— I think that the main factor is the English-speaking environment. Children are among Americans, communicate with them and, of course, this determines the desire and ability to speak English. In addition, it is clear that the English language is more compact than Russian; it allows you to express an idea as concisely as possible, without resorting to connectives and conjunctions, which abound in Russian. In Russian we say “I want you to...”, in English this same phrase is constructed much more simply, and this is important for children. Varvara tells me more and more often that reading in English is easier and therefore more interesting.

— How can you encourage children, and especially teenagers, to study Russian?

“I’m sure that the main thing here is a kind, warm attitude.” Classes should not be associated with an unpleasant pastime. In addition, you need to try to create an appropriate language environment. We have Russian language classes every Saturday at the Cleveland City Library. Russian-speaking families with children gather, and they speak only Russian; it is forbidden to communicate in English. Children play different games - “The Sea Is Worried”, “Stream” and others, have fun, laugh, and they associate Russian classes with good company, jokes and a great mood. That's why they enjoy going to school. It is very important to create positive motivation.

Parents who want to keep their children’s native language should not think that it is possible to cope on their own only by speaking Russian in a family. Be sure to need additional classes, and not just with the carrier, namely with a professional teacher who knows the appropriate teaching methods. It is not enough to own the language, it is necessary to know how to present it to children.

— You know how their native language is taught in Russia and how your children study English in American schools. Is there a significant difference?

- Yes, and it’s huge. I have the feeling that in American schools there is absolutely no serious scientific approach to language teaching. In Russia they provide a powerful linguistic base, access to the history of the language, conduct language analyzes and lexical analysis. Such serious, strong approaches give a person a sense of language and instill literacy at a young age. As a rule, by the eighth grade, Russian children write correctly, have cursive writing, and a sense of language. What do I see here? Even adult Americans write with terrible errors. I come across this all the time, although I am not a native speaker, but the mistakes are obvious. The Russian school makes a person more linguistically literate and instills in him an understanding of the language he speaks.

— How would you rate the teaching of literature there and here?

— In Russia, literature is also taken very seriously. These are the bricks, the foundations that the school lays. What's here? Only Shakespeare, at best. They themselves do not know their own American authors, let alone Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, whom we believe everyone in the world knows? I remember how, as children, we enjoyed reading many American authors - Mark Twain, Cooper, O. Henry and many others.
The American school takes a more superficial approach to the study of language and literature. But I don't presume to judge. Maybe this is right? Maybe this is how it should be - to divide already in childhood into humanists and techies, and if you are a techie, then don’t go into philology and reading? I don’t know the correct answer, but my feeling is that knowledge of one’s native language and native literature is necessary for a person to become whole as a person, literate and versatile. At least, I really want my children to be like this.

The second season will take place in the USA in 2018.Bookmarker in america“, your children can also become its winners. Read books by modern authors in Russian, discuss them with your children and write, film, and create reviews.

________________________

This year, participants of the competition wrote reviews of the books of the Booksellers: “Violin of an Unknown Master” and “Near Music” by Nina Dashevskaya, “Time is always good” by Andrey Zhvalevsky and Evgenia Pasternak, “The Cat of Oblivion” by Antonina Malysheva, “Krivolapych” by Stanislav Vostokov , “Russian captive of a French cat” by Igor Zhukov, “I’m 14 for two years now” by Irina Kostevich.

The works were evaluated by a jury composed of:

Liana Alaverdova - Head of the Kings Bay branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, essayist, translator (New York);

Olga Bukhina - translator, essayist, literary critic, specialist in children's literature (New York);

Victoria Kabo - Librarian of the Foreign Languages ​​Division of the Cleveland Public Library (Cleveland, Ohio);

Natalia Kolodina - teacher and author of the methodology of teaching Russian language and literature to bilingual children, teacher of Russian language at Winston Churchill High School (Potomac, Maryland);

Natalia Slavina - journalist, columnist for TASS (New York);

Georgy Urushadze - director of the Center for Support of Russian Literature, general director of the Big Book Prize (Moscow).

Read also on ForumDaily:

We are losing it: why do children of immigrants need Russian?

Mother tongue: how to teach a child the Russian language in the USA

How a bilingual child decides which language to speak

Miscellanea In the U.S.
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