This course provides a beginners knowledge of Russian, focusing in grammar and information retrieval skills, ability to express yourself in Russian, general and subject related vocabulary and Russian realia.

The course consists of 4 contact hours per week taught over two semesters

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The course is assessed by coursework and a final oral examination. Students are required to submit work on a regular, usually weekly, basis throughout the academic year. Assignments are translations of normally 300-500 words in length. The average mark of the best 10 assignments constitutes the final grade.
Oral examination: there will be an oral examination at the end of the year of approximately 30 minutes' duration which will test comprehension, aural and speaking skills. Students will be required to give an in-depth presentation in Russian on their research. The oral examination is worth 30% of the overall mark.

This course provides students with intensive Russian language tuition over 2 semesters of study. The course is taught to enable students to enhance the skills they have developed through post-intermediate or Honours level courses. In so doing they will acquire sufficient linguistic knowledge and translating skill to be able to read social sciences' texts of a very advanced standard in the original language and to use these in their study of social sciences' disciplines. They will also develop the requisite oral and aural skills to deal with situations that require an advanced knowledge of Russian. In addition they will have acquired the necessary writing skills to be able to provide an extensive in-depth account of their research. At the end of the course the students will have attained the necessary competence in Russian in order to use original language sources of considerable complexity with competence with and without the help of a dictionary, so that they can undertake more advanced research programmes or employment in the field of Central and East European Studies.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Read and translate complex social sciences' texts with the aid of a dictionary

■ Write a full summary in English of such social sciences' texts in Russian

■ Conduct conversations in Russian and give an extensive in-depth presentation about their research

■ Make effective use of dictionaries and other reference sources

■ Understand oral presentations of considerable complexity in Russian of social sciences' topics

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.