Teach English in XizhaizhuAng Zhen - Tianjin

Problems for Learners in RussiaThe goal of this short research essay is to better equip myself to teach english to native Russian speakers. One way in which to do this is to understand the problems that Russians face as they study the english language. With this knowledge, I will be better equipped to beforehand to deal with the challenges that will be present in a typical Russian classroom. The first and maybe most basic problem faced by Russian students is that the english language has a different alphabet than the english language. If the alphabet was completely different, that might would help with the confusion. However, the Russian alphabet has several letters in common with the english alphabet. On top of that there are several letters in the Russian alphabet that look similar to the english alphabet, yet they make a different sound. Below are a few examples of the difficulties between the two alphabets: english Russian A A B ? V ? C - S ? A second difficulty faced by Russian students is the difference in word order between the two languages. In the Russian language the word order of a sentence is fairly flexible. Typically if a person wants to stress a particular part of a sentence, they put that word first in the sentence. However, in english the word order is fairly strict. Below are a couple of examples: ?I went to the store.? You cannot change the sentence to: ?To the store went I? or ?Store to the I went.? However in Russian, these options would be perfectly acceptable. Russians also have a difficult time in their pronunciation of particular letters in the english language. The Russian ?R? rolls, while the english ?R? does not. In Russian there is no ?W? so they tend to pronounce it as a ?V?. They also tend to pronounce the Russian ?V? as an english ?W?. For example, a person could say, ?I am wery vell.? One other issue with pronunciation is in pronouncing the letter ?I? as in ?ship?. They do not have this sound and in their classes they are taught to pronounce it as ??? (e as in sheep). So a typical Russian speaking english would pronounce ?ship? and ?sheep? exactly the same way. A major problem for the Russian student of english is finding the opportunity to practice english with a native speaker. While in the major cities this is a bit easier (though still difficult at times), in the small places it is almost impossible. A lot of Russians know a decent amount of english but have just never had the opportunity to put in to practice. A common complaint of Russians who study english is the difficulty with english spelling. Writing in Russian is pretty phonetic. The way the word looks is typically the way the word is pronounced. However, in english we have so many writing rules and exceptions that it is extremely difficult for the student of english to learn to write well. A final difficulty is that in Russian there are no articles in a sentence. They do not say ?the dog? or ?a dog?. They simply say ?dog?. Learning which article to use and in which situations is a difficulty for a Russian student. Here are only a few, though many exist, of the difficulties a native Russian speaker faces in learning the english language. Sources: 1. Personal experience of living over 4 years in Moscow and Kharkov, Ukraine. 2. http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/langdiff/russian.htm 3. http://www.suite101.com/content/how-to-teach-english-in-russia-a170108 4. http://www.sras.org/michael_kogan_american_home_vladimir