Hunter Fullhart
Photography and Social Media Editor
Learning a foreign language can be one of the most challenging, yet rewarding tasks that a person can accomplish. When students think about learning a new language, they think of the more popular ones likes Spanish and French, but one Butler professor is setting out to make Russian one of those languages that everyone strives to learn.
Assistant Professor of Reading Elena Allen is a native from Krasnoyarsk, Siberia and was raised with Russian as her primary language, but as she progressed through her schooling, she realized that she wanted to learn the English language. She learned English from one of the 11 universities in Siberia where a student attends if one wants to become a teacher. She received a scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in English, which is what led her to the United States.
The Russian language course would take place twice a week, two-and-a-half hours on Monday and Wednesday. Allen said that she would begin her class reading exercises for about 10 to 15 minutes, but first she would teach the students how to read Russian. Russian short stories would be used to get the cadence of the language. She would also incorporate small talk into the class, allowing students to talk about whatever they want, but in Russian. Games, food and clothes would be used as well in the class because she wants students to actually get a grip on what the culture is itself. She said the main goal of the class would be to teach students how to communicate.
“To learn any foreign language is difficult,” Allen said. “Because when we are born, our facial muscles learn how to move to pronounce the words in your native language and that’s how they are trained. When you start to learn a foreign language, they have to relearn how to move and it’s difficult. That’s why we speak with accents because they are learning how to move. The English alphabet is based on Latin, so is German, Italian, French, Spanish, so if you take those languages it’s easier for you because you [basically] know the Latin.”
The Russian culture flows through her and she wants Butler students to get a feel what it is like to be in Russia and speaking the native language. Learning a new language can help with landing jobs in the workplace. If you have two candidates up for the same job, the person who knows a foreign language will likely get the job.
“In current day, I think we need to be learning foreign languages,” Allen smiled. “Never before, like today, we need to understand that the people are people. Though we speak different languages, people are similar everywhere. We have the same dreams. It’s up to us to keep peace in the world. The politicians can do what they need to do, but we are the same.”
The class is now open for enrollment to all Butler students. Allen is also in the process of getting a Russian Language Two class started up for the 2018 Spring semester.
