Live Chat with Russian Speakers
These live chats can:
- Give your students authentic new material to work with (the “work” is on us!)
- Encourage your students to interact with young Russian speakers as part of class
Whether your classes are online or in person, we’re all pretty versed with Zoom and other tools now, so let’s take advantage of that and get your students interacting with their Russian speaking peers. We call our chats “Поболтаем!,” which translates as “Let’s Chat!” We hope all your students will be inspired by thier informal chat with Russian speakers to become “болтуны” (chatterboxes).
Preparing your students for success
With Поболтаем!, young peer tutors “enter” your classroom via live video chat and engage in a simple and fun discussion with your students on a pre-determined topic. These are the same tutors working on our peer tutoring program. As an instructor of any higher education or high school class, you may request one complimentary Поболтаем! session per semester per class.
To ensure your students are prepared and comfortable for thier live chat with Russian speakers, we will provide the following preparatory materials:
- A video introduction of himself/herself
- A list of helpful vocabulary and phrases related to the topic
- A list of questions the students should be prepared to answer/discuss
What might this look like? Take a peek at the examples below.
Sample subjects and prep materials
- Introductions
- All about me
- My family and Pets
- My city – your city – Moscow
- My home or apartment
- Life in Siberia
- Weather and Seasons
- Daily Routine
- Hobbies
- Food: Whats in the fridge
- Aches, Pains and remedies
- Professions: doctor, teacher
- Sports
- Travel
- Daily Routine
- My university
- Hobbies
- Weather, seasons
- Public transport
- Aches, pains, remedies
- My city – your city – Moscow
- About my job and future career
- Describing my friends
- Travel and vacations
- Stereotypes
- Birthday celebrations
- Concerts/Popular music
- Sports
- Travel
- Daily Routine
- My university
- Hobbies
- Weather, seasons
- Public transport
- College Life
- Summer activities – here and there
- About Siberia
- Aches, pains, remedies
- Russian Idioms
- Movies
- Russian Slang
- Social Issues
- My University
- College Life
- Environment
- Russian Idioms
Have another idea? Contact us! We would love to hear your ideas about what would fit best with your lesson plans or your students’ interests!
Let's Chat with Russian Speakers!
On the designated date and time (between 9am and 2pm CST), everyone tunes in and the peer tutor leads discussion and interacts with your students. The peer tutors leading discussion are trained in working with learners of Russian and know some English, so they can facilitate simple discussion and motivate your students to participate.
Discussions will typically take on the following format:
- 5 min: introduction to topic
- 15 min: discussion, students answer and ask questions
- 5 min: wrap-up
Virtual Workshops and Events!
Contact Us!
We’re happy to bring you one complimentary session per semester in exchange for the opportunity to share with your students a bit of information about our study abroad options. If you are planning a faculty-led program in the future, this is a great way for us to help you recruit for that.
Contact us today about scheduling your complimentary Поболтаем! session. If you like it, we can talk about bringing you and your students more of this type of classroom support with peer tutoring or a more active experience with Погуляем! SRAS Custom Virtual Events. We are always happy to host a Zoom Study Abroad info session with US and overseas SRAS staff.