Language Resident Name: Aleksandra Bystrova

Date: 03/28/2022

Class theme/topics discussed: Celebrities and Famous People

Goal of the class:

  • Discuss vocabulary used to talk about fame
  • Learn about Russian celebrities
  • Create narration about someone else’s actions in Present tense

How did you structure the class?

  1. Warm up (10 mins): Discussion
    I ask my students to discuss the following questions in pairs:
    1) Would you like to be famous?
    Вы бы хотели быть знаменитым?  
    2) If you were a celebrity, how would you become famous?
    Если бы вы были знаменитым, в какой сфере? Как бы вы прославились?
    3) Do you know any Russian famous people? Do you like anyone and why?
    Каких русских знаменитостей вы знаете / кто и почему вам нравится?

2. Activity 1. Qualities that people admire (10 minutes)
I draw a person on the board and ask students for some help to give him a stage name. This person is very famous in Russia. Students should come to the board and write qualities that can be admired in a celebrity.

3. Activity 2. What are they doing right now? (15 minutes)
Each small group writes the name of a famous living person on a slip of paper. The teacher will collect and redistribute the pieces of paper, one per group. The group must then write four sentences telling what the person is doing right now. The teacher will encourage imagination and creativity.

4. Activity 3. Game: Pairs of Famous characters (15 mins).
In advance, the teacher will write names of famous people on pieces of paper. The names should each have a “match.” Here are some examples:

  • Матроскин и Шарик
  • Волк и заяц
  • Пятачок и Сова

The teacher will distribute the papers and instruct the students not to show the paper to anyone. Then, instruct the students to walk around the room trying to find their “matches” without saying the name of the person.

What worked well in this class? What did not work?

Students loved the class. My intermediate group knows many Russian celebrities from their classes at Pomona, so it was easy to spend time naming and discussing them. The activity with writing sentences if very helpful for the Intermediate group. They seemed comfortable taking their time and writing down the sentences in Russian.

How could this class be improved/ modified?

If the group works very fast, at the end of the lesson you can play a game, where students write a famous name on a piece of paper and pin it on someone else’s forehead. Person tries to guess what name is pinned on his/her by asking others around the room yes or no questions.