Russian: From Intermediate to Advanced - Tapa dura

"This much-needed comprehensive textbook will help students to significantly expand their vocabulary and increase their comprehension of both spoken and written texts. Covering topics of general interest (such as education, family relationship, work and employment, etc.), each chapter will also encourage students to produce texts in writing and in speech. In working on these areas it covers select aspects of Russian grammar. This four-skill textbook is truly the key to mastery for intermediate and advanced students since it focuses on independent language production through the ability to narrate, describe, compare, and explain." Irina Six, The University of Kansas, USA

"This is a good textbook for intermediate and advanced students of Russian. It is well organized, with twelve chapters on very interesting topics, and includes work on reading, listening, writing, speaking (problem solving), vocabulary, grammar and lexicology. All texts are very authentic. This book could be used everywhere in the world because it combines ACTFL and TORFL principles." Irina Kostina, University of Iowa, USA.

Russian: From Intermediate to Advanced is a vibrant and modern course designed to help students achieve advanced proficiency in Russian. Offering a flexible modular approach structured around contemporary themes, the course further develops reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills while also expanding the student’s cultural literacy.

Key features include:

• Structured chapters presenting a wide assortment of readings that include blogs, forums and surveys as well as opinion pieces and commentaries. Each text is accompanied by assignments with increasing levels of difficulty.
• Authentic and up-to-date readings, video and audio excerpts covering a range of relevant social and cultural topics, including Demography, Youth Culture, Politics and Society, Economics and Globalization.
• Video clips from news programs that are used not only to develop listening comprehension but also introduce students to contemporary Russian society.
• Particular attention to helping students acquire advanced vocabulary and the ability to converse, discuss and argue about issues with extended paragraph-length discourse.
• Special focus on the development of strong listening and reading comprehension skills, ensuring that students understand the ideas and supporting details in narrative and descriptive texts and connected discourse.
• A free companion website at http://www.russian.ucla.edu/AdvancedRussian/ offering student and instructor video and audio resources, sample syllabi and tests as well as additional materials.

Written by a highly experienced author team that has co-authored the first year Russian textbook Beginner’s Russian (2010) and the second-year textbook V Puti (2005). Russian: From Intermediate to Advanced will be an essential resource for undergraduate students in their third and fourth year of Russian language study. It is also suitable for heritage learners of Russian who have mastered literacy and are familiar with the grammatical structure of Russian.