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Gentle Linguist,
Bless You! And thank you! Thank you!
I know the textbook in question: Introductory Russian Grammar, by Galina Stilman, Leon Stilman and William Harkins of Columbia University (Lexington: Xerox Publishing Company, 1964, 1972). I taught with it for some 14 years. It was one of the most popular textbooks for beginning Russian college courses in the '70s and '80s. As a basic textbook, it's well designed, with solid explanations of grammar and lots and lots of "pattern sentences," dialogues and other readings. And that was one of its major problems: the authors produced all of the materials and sometimes their "muse" stayed at home in bed. After all, Stilman, Stilman and Harkins - and all the other well-meaning souls that produced our early textbooks - were basically Russian teachers, not Russian writers, as the following passages from their book prove:
Concerning the "dead dog" (page 462): Imagine a cold, rainy afternoon on the Upper West Side. On the third floor of an old rundown brownstone that is the Slavic Department at Columbia University, Stilman, Stilman and Harkins are working on Unit 27, the last unit of their text.
"We're almost there," says Harkins. "Think past passive participles! We need some more examples! Come on people!"
Leon Stilman is standing at the window, watching the rain. Suddenly, he looks down to the street!
"Убитая собака лежала на дороге!" he screams.
"Brilliant!" says Harkins. "It's a wrap! We're done!"
So why am I telling you this story? In the good old days that's the way Russian textbooks were written - American linguists would collaborate with native "informants." It was okay, but with all the "dead dogs," students suddenly smoking and writing left-handed, something was lacking. See, I'm getting back to your letter: Russians don't really speak like that. Indeed, you'd probably have to roam the Russian hinterland for many a year before you could finally utter the pattern sentence: "Убитая собака лежала на дороге!"
("Дохлая собака" would take less time.)
All of which brings me to the real point of my letter and the reason I thanked you up and down - Authentic Texts!
"What is an authentic text?"
It's something produced by natives for natives: a letter, a newpaper article, a television show or news broadcast, a short story, a passage from a technical book in Russian, an entry or example in a "Russian-Russian" dictionary, etc.
"So?"
So, since they're something written by natives for natives, why not use "authentic texts" to study and teach Russian? There are several advantages: 1) They're the "genuine, real thing." 2) They're grammatically correct. 3) They're already there! 4) It's the right thing to do - especially if you're not a native journalist or writer.
"How does one use authentic texts?"
If you're a student, you need to approach authentic texts from an analytical/textual perspective: read and analyze: Why these lexical choices? Why these grammatical forms? What grammatical rules come into play here? Why this word order?
If you're an instructor, you can use the same approach in class. You can also use authentic texts to produce exercises: cloze exercises - eliminate suffixes, prefixes, prepositions and similar forms, and let the students fill them in based on contextual analysis; provide alternative forms, and let students select the correct case, aspect, etc. based on context. The possibilities are many. The great advantage is that your students are using genuine materials. And best of all - you have the "key" to everything in the original text! (Don't tell your students this part.)
For more information, take LG-031.
A dog's best friend,
The RLM
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