For the 8th year this June, I taught at the STARTALK Russian intensive language program at the University of Central Florida (UCF), sponsored by the National Security Agency. At the residential camp, we had 25 students of different levels, including one of our own Russian undergraduate majors, Gwendolyn Nicholson. I was the instructor for the advanced group, which included 7 heritage students at the upper-intermediate to advanced-mid levels.

 

 

 

Since starting to teach at STARTALK UCF in 2018, I can say with confidence that this year has been the most successful due to my students' enthusiasm, dedication, and collaborative mindset they brought into class every day. In terms of language learning, we worked extensively on the proverb "семь раз отмерь - один раз отрежь" (measure seven times - cut once) and how it applies to the Russophone business world, particularly in resume and autobiographical writing, as well as elevator pitches.

 

I also had the chance to deliver a few cultural presentations in the afternoon portion of the program: one on the history of the Cyrillic alphabet (thank you to Dr. Daniel Collins for teaching me about the topic!) and Russian phonetics, and another on the reflection of Russian 2000s culture in pop music featuring Blestyashie, Potap and Nastya, Irakli, t.A.T.u., and a few other cultural icons.

 

 

 

After the camp, I returned to academic reading and writing. I am excited to share that the reading of a candidacy list has begun, and, fingers crossed, a book review co-authored with Siobhán Seigne will appear in a journal this year! I have also taken several text analysis coding courses through [http://Constellate Text Analysis Pedagogy Institute]Constellate Text Analysis Pedagogy Institute, which are free and open to anyone - highly recommend taking one (or seven) next summer!

 

Last but by no means least, Dr. Dima Arzyutov and I finished creating online modules titled "Tales from Home: Two Siberians on Siberia," sponsored by the European and Eurasian Online Curricular Module Development Grant from the [http://Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies at OSU]Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies at OSU. The modules, covering the Indigenous and colonial history of the region, utopian dreams, political exile, natural resources, climate change, and major discoveries, will be available soon on the Center's website.