I want to teach some small group Russian language (they know only "kartoshka", "babushka", "Natasha" etc.)
Thus, my question is not related to "how to learn" Russian, but "how to teach" - I suppose there are resources and plans to begin from, but I failed to find something structured. The primary goal is speaking, so the alphabet can be covered later. As you see, I use "can" because I have no plan for what to teach and when.
Any suggestions and teaching schedules would be welcome.
For teaching resources, you should look at our resource page.
Use a course book I would suggest that you go to any large bookshop and go through course books and find the one that you like the most. You should buy it (or maybe find it online) and follow it. All your students should have a copy of the book, or at least should keep the print-out pages you give them, because without it, students may feel lost and do not get a coherent learning experience.
The most obvious advantages of following the course other people designed is that you already have texts, dialogues, exercises, vocabulary and grammar selected, explained and prepared for the needs of your students. For example, the book might introduce the locative case together with countries and continents names and questions like "where are you from?" and "Where is the library", so you don't have to match grammar with fitting topics, come up with the rules you only know intuitively, find examples to illustrate your points, etc.
You can always add your own material You don't have to stick to everything they put in the book, and furthermore, you can add more texts or dialogues. If you do, be sure not to use more than 10-20 new words and 1-2 grammar elements per text. For dialogues this number is even lower, up to 8 words, I'd say, especially in the beginning of the course. Also, you should make your students learn dialogues by heart. Knowing phrases like "Привет, меня зовут...", "Как добраться до...", "Тише едешь, дальше будешь" and even "Боже мой!" will help immensely and will give the feeling that they can already say something in Russian, even though they do not really know what "меня" means and what case it is.
You can also add own exercises. You might need it if the book only contains translation exercises and you want your students to talk. Ask them to compose dialogues, describe things they see, like or know, ask each other for directions, make compliments to each other, etc., whatever fits the topic of your current chapter.
Don't give up on the written language I'd suggest that you don't give up on reading so easily, because while the Cyrillic alphabet may be difficult to learn, reading is the easiest way to maintain and improve the language. Also, learning new words without being able to write them down is tough.
Regular and easy lessons are best And finally, short regular lessons are better than long, but sporadic ones. Without regularity, nothing will work out. Also, too little new material is better than too much. It is better to take things slowly and after 3 lessons ask your students if they like the pace and whether they'd prefer to do more.
