Benjamin Rifkin

Benjamin Rifkin

Professor of Russian
College of Liberal Arts

Temple University

550 Anderson Hall
1114 W. Berks St.
Philadelphia, PA 19122 USA

Academic Biography

I earned my bachelor's and first master's degrees in Russian & East European Studies at Yale University, where I began my study of Russian. Between my first and second master's degrees, I spent two years in Moscow, where I worked for a Soviet publishing house as a translator and, in a part-time position, for NBC News as an interpreter. After working in Moscow, I enrolled in graduate school at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where I earned my second master's degree and my Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literature. I wrote my dissertation on semiotics of narration in film and prose fiction. After defending my dissertation, I joined the faculty of the Slavic Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I directed the Russian language program for 15 years, ultimately serving as chair of the department and director of the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia. From 1999 – 2003 I also served as director of the Middlebury College Russian School, a summer intensive immersion program in Russian. Since defending my dissertation, I have written 2 books and edited two volumes of essays about foreign language teaching, one of which won a national award from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. I have published over 20 articles in journals such as the ADFL Bulletin, The Foreign Language Annals, The Modern Language Journal, and The Slavic and East European Journal and regularly give talks at conferences of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, as well as lectures and workshops at universities throughout the United States and in Russia. I have been interviewed by the American and Russian media on matters related to the learning and teaching of foreign languages. I was the principal investigator for a US Department of Education grant to create advanced web-based listening comprehension lessons in Russian (RAILS). I joined the Temple team in the summer of 2005 and served as Vice Dean for Undergraduate Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts through 2007 before returning to the faculty as Professor of Russian.

What I Do

As the head of the Russian Section of the Department of French, German, Italian and Slavic, I supervise the part-time instructors who teach Russian language and culture courses in our department. As Professor of Russian, I teach courses in Russian language, literature, and film as well as courses on language acquisition. For more information about Russian at Temple and beyond, click here. I am very interested in undergraduate teaching and advising and am proud to have won awards both for teaching and advising at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (in 2000 and 2004, respectively).

Research Interests

I conduct research in the areas of foreign language pedagogy, foreign language teacher education, applied linguistics, second language acquisition (the acquisition of Russsian as a foreign language), and contemporary Russian film. I am particularly interested in assessing student learning in the context of performance-based and portfolio assessments. Scroll down for a list of my recent publications.

Professional Memberships

I am a member of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL), the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS), the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) in which I have served as President (2003-2004), the American Association of University Supervisors, Coordinators and Directors of Foreign Language Programs (AAUSC), the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR), where I serve on the board of directors, the Modern Language Association (MLA), and the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL). I serve on the Board of Directors of the Northeast Conference of the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL).

Information for Students and Teachers of Russian?

If you are a student or teacher of Russian, whether at Temple or not, and you are looking for information about learning/teaching resources or study options, click here.

Study Abroad

If you are interested in study abroad, please visit Temple's study abroad office. The study abroad programs in Russia sponsored by the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR), the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), and Middlebury College are all excellent.

Summer Russian Language Study

The American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages maintains a website with lists of summer intensive programs, including the Middlebury Russian School.

My Textbooks

I am the author of an intermediate Russian textbook, Grammatika v kontekste: Russian Grammar in Literary Contexts published by McGraw-Hill. I am also the author of a handbook for introductory Russian, START: The Sound and Writing Systems of Russian, published by Focus Publishing. I am the co-author, with Olga Kagan, of Advanced Russian through History, published by Yale University Press: click here for the website for this textbook

Other Textbooks and Teaching Materials

If you are looking for a comprehensive list of materials for the study of Russian, see www.slavica.com/teaching/rifkin.html and www.russnet.org.

Strategies for foreign language learning

Click here to see a lecture I gave about strategies for foreign language learners.

Websites with Cyrillic Fonts and Keyboard Drivers

For information about Russian fonts and keyboard drivers, click here.

Websites for Information about Jobs Using Your Russian

You can find information about job opportunities in Russia and the Newly Independent States at the BISNIS website and at the job index on the AATSEEL web page. Indiana University's Russian and East European Institute maintains a great webpage with ideas forthose searching for jobs with Slavic languages expertise: click here for that site.

Selected Publications

Books

Narrator's Discourse in Film and Prose Fiction: Case Studies of Lapshin and Scarecrow. Russian and East European Studies in Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Culture 2. New York: Peter Lang, Inc., 1994, 250 pp., xii.

Edited Volumes

The Learning and Teaching of Slavic Languages and Cultures: On the Threshold of the 21st Century , co-edited with Olga Kagan, Slavica Publishers, 2000. Book recognized with award for best contribution in pedagogy for 2000 by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages.

Mentoring Foreign Language TAs, Lecturers and Adjunct Faculty. Annual volume of the American Association of University Supervisors, Coordinators and Directors of Foreign Language Programs, Heinle and Heinle, 2000.

Book Chapters

"Attending to Learner Diversity in the Lesson Plan: Planning for Intensity of Engagement." Annual Volume of the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 2007: 74-80.

"Coordinating Russian-Language Instruction," Twelve Years of Dialogue on Teaching Russian, ed. by Betty Lou Leaver. Washington, D.C.: ACTR/ACCELS Publications, 2000. 271-282

"A Model for Teacher Training and Education in Slavic Languages," The Learning and Teaching of Slavic Languages and Cultures: Toward the 21st Century. Ed. Olga Kagan and Benjamin Rifkin. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2000. 519-538. (Refereed paper.)

"Textbooks, Videos, and CD-ROMs for Teaching Russian," The Learning and Teaching of Slavic Languages and Cultures: Toward the 21st Century. Ed. Olga Kagan and Benjamin Rifkin. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2000. 655-680. (Solicited paper.) Updated version on the web at http://www.slavica.com/teaching/rifkin.html.

"Breaking Out of the Vicious Circle: TA Training, Education and Supervision for the Less Commonly Taught Languages." Development and Supervision of Teaching Assistants in Foreign Languages. Annual Volume of the American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators. Joel Walz, editor. Heinle & Heinle, 1992. 47-84.

"Professional Training for Slavists: Priorities for the Next 30 Years," Vision 2020 (special ACTR/AATSEEL publication). U. of Iowa Press, 1992. 53-59.

Software

RAILS (Russian Advanced Interactive Listening Series) Lessons: Co-editor on advanced-level listening comprehension lessons created through US Department of Education grant at UW-Madison 2003-2006. 30 lessons: click here for more information.

Multimedia Annotator: Lead pedagogy director for multimedia annotation software created at UW-Madison, 2002-2004. Licensed through UW-Madison College of Letters & Science: <http://engage.wisc.edu/projects/MmAnnotator/>.

Multimedia LessonBuilder: Lead pedagogy director for multimedia authoring tool created at UW-Madison, 2002-2004. Licensed through UW-Madison College of Letters & Science: <http://engage.wisc.edu/projects/MmLessonBuilder/>.

T^4 Foreign Languages Project: Learning through Listening: Browser-based lessons on advanced listening comprehension for ESL, Russian and Spanish; authoring tools to create lessons in these and other languages, 2000-2003.

START: An Introduction to the Sound & Writing Systems of Russian . CD-ROM multimedia program with digitized sound and animation. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing Group, 1998. 2 nd edition: Focus Publishing Group, 2005.

Articles in Refereed Journals

"A Ceiling Effect in Communicative Language Teaching?" in the "Perspectives Column." Modern Language Journal 90.2 (2006: 262-264)

"50 Years of Pedagogy: The Learning and Teaching of Slavic Languages Past, Present and Future." Slavic and East European Journal 50.1 (2006): 29-44.

"Putting the Horse Before the Cart: Curricular Design with the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines," Journal of the African Language Teachers Association 7 (2005): 81-104.

"Models of Best Practices: The Department of Slavic Languages and Literature at UW-Madison." ADFL Bulletin 36.3 (2005): 57-62.

"A Ceiling Effect in Traditional Classroom Foreign Language Instruction: Data from Russian." Modern Language Journal 89.1 (2005): 3-18.

"A Response to Glisan and Donato." Foreign Language Annals 37.3 (2004): 477-483.

"Oral Proficiency Learning Outcomes and Curricular Design." Foreign Language Annals: Special Issue on the Oral Proficiency Interview 36.4 (2003): 582-588.

“Guidelines for Foreign Language Lesson Planning.” Foreign Language Annals 36.2 (2003): 167-179.

"Criteria for the Assessment of Foreign Language Instructional Software and Websites, " ADFL Bulletin 34.2 (2003): 53-56.

“A Case Study of the Acquisition of Narration in Russian: A Project at the Intersection of Three Disciplines.” Slavic and East European Journal 46 (2002): 465-482.

“The Evolution of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in Contemporary Russian Cinema from Perestroika to Putin.” Ab Imperio 3 (2002): 561-580. (Translated into Czech at http://www.iliteratura.cz/knigi/archiv/lit/film_brat2.htm)

"Obuchenie russkomu iazyku v SShA: Metodika testirovaniia." Vysshee obrazovanie v Rossii: Nauchno-pedagogicheskii zhurnal Ministerstva obrazovaniia Rossiiskoi Federatsii [Higher Education in Russia: Scholarly-Pedagogical Journal of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation ]: 5 (2001): 139-147.

"Collaboration: The Key to Building Curricula for Communication," Journal of Southeast Asian Language Teaching, VII (1998 / published in 2001): 1-32.

"Revisiting Beliefs about Foreign Language Learning." Foreign Language Annals 33 (2000): 394-420.

"Video in the Proficiency-Based Advanced Conversation Class: An Example from the Russian Curriculum." Foreign Language Annals 33 (2000): 63-71.

"Second Language Acquisition Theory and the New Generation of Russian-Language Textbooks," Slavic and East European Journal 41.2 (1997): 330-340.

"Error Gravity in Learners' Spoken Russian: A Preliminary Study." Modern Language Journal 79 (1995): 477-490.

"Writing Skills in the Russian-Language Curriculum." Russian Language Journal 49.162-164 (1995): 65-88.

"The Christian Subtext in Bykov's Film Chuchelo." Slavic and East European Journal 37 (1993): 178-193.

"The Communicative Orientation of Russian-Language Textbooks." Slavic and East European Journal 36.4 (1992): 463-488.

"The Reinterpretation of History in Aleksei German's Film My Friend Ivan Lapshin : Shifts in Center and Periphery." Slavic Review 51 (1992): 431-447.

Coauthored Articles

"The State of the Russian Field 20 Years after the Report of the National Committee for Russian Language Study: A Response to Rachel Stauffer," coauthored with Dan Davidson and Jane Shuffelton. Slavic and East European Journal 50.4 (2006): 679-684.

"Apples and Oranges Are Both Fruit, But They Don't Taste the Same: A Response to Wynne Wong and Bill VanPatten," coauthored with Betty Lou Leaver and Boris Shekhtman, Foreign Language Annals37.1 (2004): 125-132.

“Attaining High Levels of Proficiency: Challenges for Language Education in the United States.” Co-authored with Margaret E. Malone, Donna Christian and Dora E. Johnson of the Center for Applied Linguistics. ; published in Journal for Distinguished Language Studies 2 (2004): 67-88.

"Gender Representation in Foreign Language Textbooks: A Case Study of Textbooks of Russian," Modern Language Journal 82 (1998): 217-236 (co-authored with graduate students of the UW-Madison Slavic Department.)

"Error Gravity: A Critical Review of Research Design." (coauthored with F. D. Roberts) Language Learning 45 (1995): 511-537.