by Jay Hadfield, Graduate Teaching Associate in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, former Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow

At the beginning of the Autumn 2025 semester, I asked my Russian 1102 students a question: why do you think so many students decide not to move on from the first to second semester of Russian? Their answers varied, since this group included students with a mix of first-semester experiences, but one phrase stuck out to me for how it seemed to inspire solemn nods of agreement: first semester Russian, for many, felt like being “thrown in the deep end.”

I am familiar with that feeling—having myself learned Russian as an American, and especially having studied in Russia as an undergraduate, I remember well the many times I felt the pressure of “sink-or-swim" style language learning. So, I was prompted to reflect: how and why did I make it through the intense on-ramp of this learning curve? The conclusion was likewise reflected in my students’ answers: in a word, support. Why did my students feel as though they lacked support outside of the classroom, and, more importantly, what could I do about it as their instructor? What kinds of support did I have that helped me to succeed in learning Russian?

My undergraduate experience was very different from that of our students here at Ohio State; my tiny liberal arts campus naturally created tight-knit learning communities. Since we only had one full-time faculty professor teaching Russian language and a handful of students at each level, our Russian students all knew each other by name. While both Ohio State and my undergraduate have dedicated instructors who are readily available to help students outside of the classroom, this kind of support isn’t the right fit for every student. What about students who are nervous about coming to office hours? What about students who feel embarrassed about not understanding something which they think they “should” understand? While we, as instructors, of course do our utmost to be encouraging and approachable, there’s always the simple fact that instructors and their students are essentially not peers.

In our department, we have dozens of incredibly bright and dedicated students of Russian language and culture — it’s not hard to see how those who make it “over the hump” of the challenging first few years often fall in love with the material, like so many of us have. This is one of the great strengths of having a large campus with many students: we have many excellent students. The downside, so to speak, is that we must work a little harder to connect them, to bring those students together, when they aren’t always running into each other like we did on my campus of 2500. So that is what I set out to do a few months ago: to create a program that will foster the growth of our learning community from the ground up, to encourage real connections between our students across levels, and to provide them with the means to support one another in ways that we, their instructors, sometimes cannot.

From the very beginning, I decided on two principles which would be essential for making this work: minimizing potential for stress and maximizing the opportunities for authentic connections. Students’ lives are already stressful, already full of deadlines and group projects, and nothing would stifle this project faster than loading it with expectations, requirements, and grades. For this program to really spark connections between peers, that is exactly what it has to be: between peers.

As instructors, we see this all the time in the classroom: students are talking among themselves, the teacher walks up, and the conversation dies down. Even if you’re merely “checking in,” the fact remains: the teacher isn’t the student’s peer. That’s not a bad thing, actually, even though it can feel awkward at times; it’s a natural limit to the student-teacher relationship, and one that exists for good reason. The presence of the instructor changes the social dynamic between students. What, then, can the instructor do to foster their students’ community? The answer, I believe, is simple: introduce them to one another.

Essentially, all we’re trying to do is provide an opportunity for students to make peer connections by putting them in touch with one another, giving them some basic resources and suggestions for how to support one another, and turning them loose to interact in whatever way comes naturally to them. Each of our peer mentors is a student from a higher level of Russian language who has volunteered to be a resource and personal connection for the mentee students who reach out to them; what exactly that means for them, how they will best fulfill that role, is up to them. Of course, we instructors will remain available as resources both for our students and for the mentors who may themselves need some guidance on how to best help their mentees, but the goal is to stay very “hands off” once we get the ball rolling.

While this project is still very much an experiment, it is grounded in the fact that we have passionate, bright students with similar interests, and that if we just get them all introduced to one another, the community will grow from there. Of course, there is the possibility that few students take to this model; the lack of any guaranteed outcome is sometimes daunting. But my hope, which I believe is well-founded, is that at least some of the students (both mentors and mentees) will befriend one another, will help one another with learning the language, will share resources and interesting tidbits and recommendations, and that this growth will strengthen our learning community. With any luck, this will extend beyond simply academic benefits: a learning community is, after all, a community, and even without assurances, striving to foster that community is a worthwhile goal in itself.

I’m hopeful that this project will be a success, and that every semester we can introduce our new language students to mentors from higher levels, and that those students will in turn become mentors for another group of students down the line. At the end of the day, jumping into a new language is always going to feel a bit like being “thrown in the deep end.” We can’t make that water any shallower, but we can at least keep strong swimmers around to help out while you get the hang of things.

If you or a student you know would be interested in getting involved as either a peer mentor or mentee, please don’t hesitate to email Jay at hadfield.13@osu.edu for more information.