Beverly Nickles

For intensive, year-round study and acquisition of Russian language and culture, how can there be a better place than Russia?  How could a program in the West be a better substitute for missionaries than being immersed in Russian culture and language daily?  In Russia the missionary hears the language by walking the streets, riding public transport, going to the market, and listening to people on the elevator.  By simply listening, the language student begins to pick up the tone, rhythm, and intonation of the language--as natives speak it.  A language lesson is as close as the radio or television or any newspaper or magazine on the street.  As a famous American linguist, Leonard Bloomfield, said, "All of the environment teaches."

Formal study
Studying Russian in Russia by necessity includes practice on the streets, with conversation in context by native speakers.  Students who cannot run from the language, but must hold it in their heads, learn faster.  But when students study the Russian language in the West they do not develop the habit of thinking in the language because they are not forced to.  However, fluency will come only as students are able to think in the language.

Missionaries need to be able to use the language, not simply know it.  They must develop the skills of understanding other people and accurately get their message across.  The best way to learn that is in conversations and in relationships with native speakers.  A minority of missionaries have enrolled their children in Russian public schools or have hired tutors to teach their children Russian language, literature, and culture.  Such an approach can enrich missionary children and the ministry of their parents.

Missionaries who have come to Russia after studying the language in the West report difficulties.  One young American said, "I studied Russian in my university for two years, but when I got here I couldn't understand Russians and they couldn't understand me." Other missionaries who arrived after having studied in an intensive program for missionaries in the West felt that the experience had ruined them for learning the language.

Several Russian-language programs in the former Soviet Union have many decades of experience teaching individuals from every part of the world who have no knowledge of Russian.  Because of well-trained and experienced professional teachers, these students begin reading, writing, understanding, and speaking Russian after a few months.

Personal experience
I came to Russia knowing almost nothing of the language.  As much as possible, I immersed myself in the culture, living almost exclusively in the Russian community.  I forbade my language teachers and almost everyone else to speak to me in English.  My first formal language study was in a nontraditional intensive language program at the former Higher Komsomol School in Moscow.  During the Communist period, since the Komsomol School trained young Communist leaders from all over the former Soviet Union and other Communist countries, the main textbook had its share of Communist ideology and propaganda, which has given me insights into a worldview that continues to shape the thinking of ordinary Russians.

I then studied in a more traditional ten-month intensive program at Moscow State University's Center for International Education, which has over four decades of experience in teaching Russian as a second language.  I received a rich spectrum of Russian language, history, and literature from the hearts of highly educated Russians.  Native speakers who know, love, and live their culture firsthand teach with a great depth of knowledge and feeling.

A word of caution though:  sometimes the system is difficult for Americans.  For example,  in Russia the first day of teaching often begins using only Russian.  This approach challenges the student more intensely to think in the new language.  Learning in America typically involves materials and an approach that mix Russian and English.  Americans sometimes rebel against the all-Russian approach and demand a teacher willing to "explain it in English." This is just one example of how Russians don't necessarily see or do things the way Americans do.

I made the decision that it would be better in terms of long-term ministry to yield myself to this approach.  It forced some changes in me, but maybe the experience made me more understanding of the Russians around me.  Unfortunately, there were times when I also resisted.  Looking back, I wish I had been more pliable and had taken what my teachers said a little more seriously.  My life in Russia and my ministry would have been much richer.  Americans tend to expect teachers to perform in a way that is familiar to them.  Might it help in cultural adaptation if missionary students tried to adapt somewhat to the style of the Russian teacher?  To be sure, it is harder and more time-consuming just to live in Russia.  But an astute student takes hold of the normal routine and events of life and turns them into cultural and language acquisition lessons.  "Real life" does not get in the way of learning; it enhances learning. 

Beverly Nickles is a missionary journalist with Conservative Baptists International based in Moscow.