Written by Angelo Juarez, Summer 2024 and Summer 2025 FLAS Fellow

Last year, I spent ten weeks of my summer learning Russian in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan through SRAS. It was quite an amazing experience for me. There, I largely learned the language by talking directly to native Russian speakers out in the world doing their everyday activities. For example, I often spoke with mall workers, taxi drivers, or people at the gym I often went to. I also lived with a host family, whose members either spoke little or no English at all, which was great for me. My classes were very advanced and more vocabulary- and conversation-based. General grammar rules, like using the grammatical cases, was knowledge I was expected to already have there.

The Middlebury College School of Russian in Vermont, where I studied for eight weeks this past summer, was different from Kyrgyzstan in several ways. At Middlebury, I had the opportunity to review more elementary grammar subjects. I would say the US-based program helped with “filling in the Russian gaps” I had.  Though not being able to offer the real-world cultural experience an overseas program has, I felt the Russian program at Middlebury, was stricter and more structured. It was extremely organized, so as to make the most of every opportunity one could have to learn Russian while in the US. 

Each day, Monday through Thursday, our group of about twenty students had three fifty-minute classes—grammar, reading, and speaking—between 9:50 AM and 1:00 PM, followed by a seventy-minute lunch break, and finally another fifty-minute grammar workshop that lasted until 3:00 PM. I’m extremely glad that, for us, classes began later in the morning, because that gave us time to study at home, go to the gym, and have breakfast. Each week in class, we would be rearranged into three smaller groups of about seven students, and the order in which we would take the grammar-reading-speaking class sequence would vary each week. It was a very dynamic course arrangement. Each Friday, beginning at 10:00 AM, we would take a written and oral exam for about two hours, then have a culture class after lunch break. We covered almost the entire textbook we used, which required completing at least two chapters each week. We also had to submit daily homework and weekly essays. From Sunday to Thursday, we would have optional tutoring sessions with professors or graduate students, and we were encouraged to attend evening office hours, 8:00-9:00 PM, to work on homework and ask questions also on those days. 

Outside of academics, we had plenty of extracurricular activities to choose from, including the Russian choir, Russian theater, cooking club, Russian slang club, Russian traveler’s club, outdoor trips, bible study in Russian, yoga and meditation sessions in Russian, sports clubs (e.g. soccer, volleyball, badminton—they used technical vocabulary in Russian), handcrafts club, and Minecraft club, among others. There were also regular presentations on interesting topics, such as the war in Ukraine and propaganda, or literary reviews. Cultural events, such as a few classical piano recitals and a Russian folk music ensemble performance at the Middlebury Town Hall also took place while I was in the program. Russian tea evenings, which encouraged our speaking skills in Russian, took place twice a week. On weekends, we also had parties, on campus or at a bar downtown. They play Russian songs and the language pledge is still required in these events.

As for infrastructure and resources, the cafeterias at Middlebury have delicious, varied food choices, and if you stay at Ridgeline, you’ll have your own, new bedroom, central air conditioning, and nice, comfortable study areas. The library has excellent, quiet study areas with ergonomic chairs and large desks. It is possible to print over a hundred pages at no additional cost, and there is a nice drugstore that stays open until late at night. There are plenty of study areas in different parts of campus. 

The Middlebury campus is located in hilly, beautiful terrain. There are beautiful lakes and the wildlife is amazing. Though small, the city center is full of shops, bars and restaurants. I recommend visiting the city center on your own on a few weekends. Students also traveled outside of Middlebury on weekends, such as to Canada, which isn’t far.     

The Russian Choir, in which I participated, presented a folk musical-style or show performance, as opposed to solely focusing on vocal performance. There was acting mixed with music-making, and it even included a small instrumental ensemble. The theme of the musical was a traditional Russian wedding. This was one of the extracurricular activities I enjoyed the most during the program. Similarly, I loved movie nights, which took place either in auditoriums or outdoors. Films were of varied genres, old and modern, and they would either be great for developing listening skills or for their profound cultural content. For instance, I enjoyed watching Sergei Parajanov’s The Color of Pomegranates, Michael Lockshin’s Master and Margarita, and Nikita Mikhalkov’s An Unfinished Piece for Mechanical Piano. I attended almost all of the film nights. 

The language pledge was a really good effort to maximize our ability to listen and speak Russian. We were mostly required to speak Russian, even while at home. If we broke the pledge once, we received a fair warning from the Russian program director, if we broke it a second time, we would be expelled. This was a serious matter, indeed, as one student had to leave the program for this reason. Interestingly, since speaking Russian at all times was not absolutely required in my study-abroad program last year, I feel that Middlebury’s language pledge forced me to be in situations where I had to speak in Russian at all costs, which was good. Oftentimes, in Kyrgyzstan, I spoke with my classmates in English outside of class. 

It’s important to note that the US-based immersive learning environment for learning Russian can be largely limited to speaking with other students who are non-native Russian speakers and might make grammar or pronunciation mistakes as they speak the language. Their vocabulary might also be limited. However, I feel that talking to those who knew less than me was a great opportunity to learn through teaching the language, and speaking with those who knew more was a great opportunity for learning new vocabulary and improving my ability to understand different accents. Finally, some might think that the logical sequence of taking immersive Russian courses should be starting off with US-based instruction, such as the Russian school in Middlebury, then moving on to a real-world learning environment, like the study abroad program in Kyrgyzstan I participated in. However, I would say this is relative. There were a few students like me at Middlebury, who started off with an overseas language experience and wanted to work on certain skills more in depth. 

I loved Middlebury, just as I loved my experience in Kyrgyzstan. They are equally important and complementary for your learning and I strongly recommend going to both, in whichever order, if you have the time and resources.