Multimedia self-study of the Russian language at beginners' level: Kraski

by Simona Berardi & Liudmila Buglakova

Kraski was developed at the Interfaculty Language Centre of Forlì (University of Bologna) and is intended for use for self-study of the Russian language in an academic context.
The Interfaculty Language Centre in Forlì decided not to use a ready-made software for the realization of this project but, instead, designed software which takes into account not only the language-learning aims but also the needs of the user.
Kraski is divided into four topic units which become increasingly more difficult as regards linguistic ability and communicative competence. Each unit presents three situations through the use of a video clip, each of these is followed by six exercises designed to consolidate vocabulary and morphological knowledge. In most of the exercises, the user is helped by the use of the grammar cards: as the course is designed to improve communicative competence, the grammar explanations are given solely as an aid to the learner within the context of the course and are presented schematically. If an exercise includes unknown vocabulary then a hypertext link allows the user to consult a multimedia vocabulary card which includes images and sounds.
At the end of every topic unit, we find the section Talking about... which contains different speaking activities which act as a sort of self-evaluation of the progress made and help to improve communicative ability.
The self-study user is also helped by the presence of several aids which can be consulted at any time:

access the full paper: Studi Slavistici, I, 2004: 253-260 [it]