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According to Swiss national statistical data, about 30,000 Russian-speaking people lived in the country in 2010. This is only equal to about 2% of all the foreigners currently living in Switzerland, but considering that many foreigners come from the neighborhood – Italy, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain and the former Yugoslavia – this number might be considered impressive. Moreover, Russian was the tenth most commonly spoken native language in the country:
1.German
2.French
3.Italian
4.Serbo-Croatian
5.Albanian
6.Spanish
7.Portuguese
8.English
9.Turkish
10.Russian
However the exact data might be different: Many of those people might have more than one nationality, which is not reflected in the statistics. Nevertheless, Russian migrants play an important role in Swiss society: as businesspeople, creative people and scientists. There are many highly qualified Russians employed as engineers, including, for example, many of the team members working on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
Therefore, in almost every canton, there are many day-care centers, kindergartens and elementary schools offering Russian as a heritage language for children and youths.
Only a few educational institutions have the right to provide Russian as HSK (Unterricht in heimatlicher Sprache und Kultur, Engl.: Teaching heritage language and culture) lessons, however. One of the reasons for this is the fact that many teachers are not qualified for such settings. With Russian as HSK lessons, professional institutions not only have access to cantonal resources such as the use of school rooms, but are also able to teach a language that can be included in the school certificate of students with Russian backgrounds and acknowledged by all Swiss and international educational institutions.
Russian language instruction is offered in many schools throughout Switzerland. The subject was designed initially as a foreign language, but has come to encompass new dimensions in recent years: Swiss students learn Russian together with ‘native speakers’ – children and youth with Russian migrant backgrounds. This is an obstacle for all participants: for teachers, who are not educated for such settings; for domestic Swiss students, who do not feel comfortable in such classes; and especially for heritage Russian students, who are often under challenged and do not have a real opportunity to retain and improve their native language.
The maintenance of heritage languages supports the learning of the state languages and thus furthers quick integration into Swiss society; moreover, this advances the study of other foreign languages and increases employability.
There are many studies covering Russian as a heritage language (s. references), but there is a gap when it comes to describing and analyzing the teaching materials for this target group. The paper will try to fill this shortage. In my current research I concentrate on the demand for appropriate teaching materials covering both groups: 1) heritage learners studying Russian as a Foreign Language and 2) heritage learners studying Russian as a Heritage Language. My presentation shows some didactical concepts:
Introduction
Konechno!: Designed for Russian as a Foreign Language, but includes exercises for heritage learners:
Elena Denisova-Schmidt (co-author)
Konetschno!, Russisch als 2. Fremdsprache. Stuttgart, Leipzig: Ernst Klett Verlag, 2008.
Storyline
The book’s storyline includes a protagonist – Viktor Nauman – who lives in Russia, but has family in Germany. Viktor represents the Volga Germans, the German-speaking minority in Russia. Some Volga Germans moved back to Germany after collapse of the Soviet Union; some still remain in Russia. Alexander Nauman, now living in Berlin, visits his half-brother Viktor in Moscow. Both boys explore the city:
Алекс, сводный брат Вити, живёт в Берлине. Алекс не часто летает на самолёте, но летать ему нравится. В Москву он летит в первый раз. Витя с бабушкой и дедушкой едут в аэропорт Домодедово. Дедушка Вити обычно не ездит на машине в час пик, поэтому они едут на метро. Алекс уже ждёт в аэропорту и ходит по залу. Наконец идут Витя с бабушкой и дедушкой.
Витя: Эй, соня, уже 10 часов, пора вставать!
Алекс: Что? Уже?
Витя: Мы едем в центр.
Алекс: В центр города? Неплохо. Кремль, Мавзолей Ленина ...
Витя: Мавзолей? Кому это интересно?
Алекс: Мне, и даже очень. У нас мавзолея нет. А на чём мы едем?
Витя: На метро, конечно. Москвичи обычно ездят в центр города на метро.
Алекс: На метро, здорово!
Витя: Тогда вперёд, ребята нас уже ждут.
This context makes students more sensitive to the history of the Volga Germans; they represent the majority of Russian-speaking immigrants in German-speaking Europe.
Additional exercises
Every unit contains a Reading page with more challenging exercises, which are developed for heritage students, but could be also used with high-performance students:
Russian as a Foreign Language
Skazochnaia Azbuka:
Designed for Russian as a Heritage Language.
Elena Denisova-Schmidt (co-editor)
Skazochnaia Azbuka 2012
Skazochnaia Azbuka contains
Posters with Russian letters showing characters from Russian fairy tales (might be used in classrooms and at home).
A book for writing and reading exercises for kids (4-8 years)
Как ты думаешь, какой звук произносят все эти люди?
Если ты познакомился с новым человеком, то ты должен узнать его в любой одежде, в шапке и без, в пальто и в рубашке. Также и с буквой А – тебе важно научиться ее узнавать! Найди и обведи в кружочки все буквы А на рисунке!
А Д Д а я М а а Д Д А М А Д М В Я А Д Я м
л А Я В а Л Д А А Л Д А Л а Л А а Д в Я Л л
Срисуй сюда ту букву А, которая тебе понравилась больше всех:
…..
A book for reading exercises and games for kids and youths (5-12 years), presenting many fairy tales for each Russian letter
1. Приглашение в сказку
2. По дорожкам сказки
3. Работа над лексикой
4. Подвижные развивающие игры («Физкультминутка»)
5. Мастерская
6. Я рисую
7. «Окружающий мир»
Russian as a Heritage Language Conclusions
1. Heritage learners are not homogeneous; this should be considered.
2. It is a challenge to produce a textbook for Russians leaving abroad that adheres to the peculiarities of every country.
3. Nevertheless, appropriate teaching materials designed for heritage learners studying Russian as a Foreign Language and heritage learners studying Russian as a Heritage Language are still in demand and need to be developed.
References
1. Bar-Shalom, E. and E. Zaretsky. 2008. Selective attrition in Russian-English bilingual children: Preservation of grammatical aspect. International Journal of Bilingualism 12, 281-302.
2. Benmamoun E., Montrul S., and Polinsky M. 2010. White Paper: Prolegomena to Heritage Linguistics http://nhlrc.ucla.edu/events/institute/2012/
3. Comrie, B., G. Stone, and M. Polinsky. 1996. The Russian language in the twentieth century. Oxford: Blackwell.
4. Denisova-Schmidt, E. 2009. Russkii iazyk v Germanii. Russkii iazyk za rubezhom, 6, 61-62.
5. Gupol, O. 2009. The acquisition of Russian verbal morphosyntax in Russian-Hebrew bilingual children. Ph.D. dissertation, Bar-Ilan University.
6. Laleko, O. 2010. The syntax-pragmatics interface in language loss: Covert restructuring of aspect in Heritage Russian. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Minnesota.
7. Montrul, S. 2012: Is the Heritage Language like a Second Language? Eurosla Yearbook http://nhlrc.ucla.edu/events/institute/2012/readings.asp
8. Polinsky, M. 1997. American Russian: Language loss meets language acquisition. In W. Browne et al. (eds.). Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics, 370-407. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications.
9. Polinsky, M. 2006. Incomplete acquisition: American Russian. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 14, 191-262.
10.Polinsky, M. and O. Kagan. 2007. Heritage languages: In the ‘wild’ and in the classroom. Language and Linguistics Compass 1/5, 368-95.
11.Protassova, E. 2008: Teaching Russian as a Heritage Language in Finland. Heritage Language Journal, 6 (1), 127-152.
Contact Dr. Elena Denisova-Schmidt
The Department of Russian Culture and Society
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
University of St. Gallen (HSG)
Gatterstrasse 3, 9010 St. Gallen, Switzerland
University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) Elena Denisova-Schmidt
Russian Heritage Leaners in Switzerland: Challenges and Opportunities