Kristin Peterson-Bidoshi, assistant professor of Russian, and David Galloway of Hobart & William Smith Colleges, recently received a $250,000 grant from the Department of Education for their project, “A Dynamic Grammar Trainer for Russian Verbs,” to help develop a Web-based module for training students on Russian verb conjugation and verbal aspect.
Verbal aspect is considered a particularly difficult concept for native speakers of English who are learning Russian, Peterson-Bidoshi says. “Most Russian verbs exist in two forms, an imperfective and perfective. When used in the past or future tenses, each form has a slightly different shade of meaning. What we propose is an innovative way to test Russian verbs in general and verbal aspect in specific.
“Our dynamic system will generate paragraphs containing multiple sentences, which will allow students and instructors to view the verbs in context, an option both more authentic in terms of how language is used and more useful to the students, who must learn to recognize contextual nuances which will lead them to the correct verb choice.”
The grant will also allow for the creation of a structured feedback system based on user response.