Teacher: Elena Albina (Quebec)
(Teacher originally from Kazan, Russia. Speaks English, French, Other.)
My teaching methods are inspired by four classical approaches which vary from students' needs and interests: traditional (e.g.translation), direct (e.g. dialogues questions-answers), structural (e.g. grammar exercises) and communicative (e.g. production of documents by students and teacher).
As a social constructivist, I am deeply convinced that learning is an active process, where the role of the teacher is not simply to transfer knowledge but to provide students with all possible tools to encourage them for creative self-work and further independent discovery.
Since my appoach is result-oriented, I ask my sudents to produce some documents after each lesson and to put them in a specially assigned folder in Dropbox, so that I could correct them before the next lesson starts. For pure beginners who only start learning alphabet, it might be writing by hand letters and words in printed and cursive forms and registering their reading. For more advanced students, the tasks could be answering to the questions to the audio texts I read and we discussed during the lesson (the list of new words is distibuted before), constructing dialogues and texts based on the specific grammar structures and chosen vocabulary topics, answering to multiple-choice exercices available in Russian language web-sites, translating to French students' own texts written earlier in Russian and corrected by me a lesson before. Besides, from time to time I also conduct some general tests of their knowledge followed by spontaneous conversation on the topics we studied before. This latter method allows me to reveal the gaps in their knowldge and to reconstruct my future lessons accordingly.
Lessons in person or online:
Hourly rates: (CAD $)
1 student: $30.00
2 students: $23.00
3+ students: $17.00
Fees apply. View details.
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Course: Russian language
"Class well organized and teacher used relevant material."CB, Washington DC
Course: Russian Language
"Teacher is always punctual, prepared and prepares interesting lessons. "CB, Washington DC
Course: Russian language
"Elena is patient, good at identifying shortcomings in students and adapts well to fill those gaps. Under her tutelage, I have progressed significantly in a relatively short time, and have learned about Russian history and culture in the process!"CM, Montreal
Course: Russian language. Beginner to Advanced.
"J'aime beaucoup mes cours avec Natalia. C'est un excellent professeur, elle est ponctuelle et toujours bien préparée. Nos leçons sont amusantes et le matériel qu'elle fourni est intéressant et adéquat! "AD, Montreal
Course: Russian language
"It was a great class. It reinvigorated me to study Russian grammar. She explains things very well and gives the needed examples to make it clear. I will definitely continue with this teacher."MO, Montreal
Course: Russian language. Beginner to Advanced.
"Natalia Russian class is excellent. She has so much energy and enthusiasm, and is always very prepared. She is able to make my three year old daughter feel comfortable, and makes learning fun.""KA, Montreal
Course: Russian language. Beginner to Advanced.
"Listens closely and corrects mistakes. Provides interesting materials for reading practice and discussions. Lets me complete sentences before correcting. Good lessons."CB, Washington DC
Course: Russian language. Beginner to Advanced.
"I really liked my experience with this language course, which helped me a lot with my reading, writing and speaking skills. Natalia gave me a lot of practical examples and situations, and managed to adapt her classes very well to work on what I had trouble with. This has been a really helpful course, and I will definitely continue learning Russian with Natalia in the future. "RB, Montreal