Do Our Students Speak?

Abstract

College teachers of Russian who receive into their second-year classes the unevenly trained products of high school courses, have a problem. No one will question this, least of all the high school teachers, who intimately know the deficiencies of time, character, and circumstances from which their graduates have suffered. Furthermore, the problem stands to be compounded in th'e next few years by a growing disparity among high school products. Some high schools will make the decision to concentrate their inadequate time on speaking and hearing at the cost of reading and writing, and others will make the reverse choice. Thus, colleges will receive students with more strengths and weaknesses at both ends of the skill spectrum. The fact remains, unfortunately, that when the high school language pattern becomes a long enough sequence to obviate the necessity of this disastrous choice, several years will have gone by, and they may be fateful. For the establishment of Russian in the high school curriculum of tomorrow, and hence the college and elementary school curriculum of the day after tomorrow, colleges hold the key today. Either the small and enthusiastic beginnings already made will become substantial and send out new roots to make interest in