USC's Russian program is creating a virtual exchange with the Russian program at the Arctic University of Tromsø, Norway (UiT) starting in the fall 2025 semester.
Through a grant from the UTFORSK, a Norwegian Directorate for higher education and skills, this educational collaboration between USC and UiT was able to happen. This grant allows Norwegian institutions to enhance international learning environments and the quality of higher education to address both local and global societal challenges.
This program will allow students to have the opportunity to meet others from Norway and work on tasks together all while utilizing the Russian language. Over the course of two years, the students will virtually meet with their partner and then at the end of the years, do a brief travel abroad to each others' countries.
“The program is (a) virtual exchange. So basically, this means that every student in the Russian program in (the) first and second year will have a partner in Norway, and they will meet regularly for individual kinds of meetings,” Assistant professor of Russian linguistics Olesya Kisselev said.
Kisselev has collaborated with associate professor and UiT Russian program coordinator Svetlana Sokolova and UiT multiple times and said the universities align with a general understanding of language development and teaching.
Kisselev said she's been thinking of ways to update the Russian courses, making them more innovating, adding new challenges and reimagining the curriculum. Back in February 2024, Kisselev and Sokolova met once again at a conference and started planning a new program for both of their universities.
This idea came from wanting to give students the opportunity to see the world outside the classroom, Kisselev said. While this will still be a class where students learn language, grammar and vocabulary, they will also be required to meet with their partner via zoom and complete tasks and learn more about their peers, Kisselev said.
“Russian will be their mutual language,” Kisselev said. “So, they will be forced knowing whatever little language they know, they will be allowed this opportunity to use this language, to practice what they learned in class, but also learning these things about life that may seem very, very different.”
The students will be given weekly assignments with their partner that are integrated back into the curriculum, Kisselev said. This gives students the opportunity to connect with someone from a completely different place but using the mutual language of Russian.
While this program is set to start during the fall 2025 semester, there is currently a four-week pilot happening so the instructors can see what works best and does not, Sokolova said.
During this pilot the students are given two tasks to complete, Sokolova said. The first one is making a profile on a website called Padlet, where the students can provide their name, where they are from, pictures and a few sentences about themselves.
“Once they have posted their profiles (on) Padlet, they could start interacting with each other before meeting each other physically,” Sokolova said.
Sokolova said that the second task consists of the students having a conversation online, which will take place over the next few weeks.
“Everything is supposed to be in Russian. That's kind of the challenge,” Sokolova said. “But, that's what we're after. We're really interested in making them use as much language as possible, and they start interacting with each other.”
With the website, students are able to interact and tell their stories rather than having to do it for an assignment for their teacher, Kisselev said.
“So in a way, we're building a new instructional environment where people are participating in creating language for each other to consume,” Kisselev said. “You're writing a story for your community to see. You're sharing something real, something that is personal."
When the tasks have been completed, the students will then meet with their language instructors and summarize what they learned about their peers in Russian, Sokolova said. Once the pilot is completed, feedback will be collected from the students who participated, Sokolova said.
Associate Professor of Russian and Russian program director Judith Kalb is also involved in the program and said that this will benefit students beyond the classroom and into the real world.
“You're not just going to be sitting in a class studying your textbook ... you're going to be like, ‘Okay, I am learning this language because, one, I'm using it with a student from a completely different culture ... two ... I'm learning about values in different places,” Kalb said. “This has relevance as you go forward in life.”
While this is mostly a virtual exchange, there is also the face-to-face component where the students from Norway will visit USC for about two weeks, Kisselev said.
“We will organize all the activities for them, like language learning and learning about Columbia, about South Carolina ... and then at the end of year two, we are going with a group of our students to Norway,” Kisselev said.
Acccording to documents from Kisselev, the students apart of the study abroad will continue language study and developmental activities while using the Russian language for all communication.
Sokolova said that this exchange brings the fun component back into teaching because the students will be getting to know their peers from another country, all while learning the same language.
“We're looking forward to it being even more successful next semester,” Sokolova said. “It's amazing to collaborate with our U.S. partners.”
Any students wanting to learn the basics of the Russian language and earn their language credits are able to take this course, according to documents from Kisselev. The courses titles are RUSS 121 and RUSS 122.
Kalb said that the Russian program will be offering other classes such as Russian literature, linguistics, culture and more all in English in the fall.