Teachers Note:

Description: Conjugate verbs in the present tense to fill in a text from ESA astronaut A. Kuipers´ diary extract about his Russian language lesson.

Objective(s): Learn about an astronaut’s training in Russian. Practise conjugating verbs in the present tense.

Hints: If the children would like to know what the Russian language is like, you may want to propose the activity: “Do you speak Russian?” to them.

Hints: Russian is the main language during the mission, so I have a Russian lesson every week. My teacher is also a lecturer at the University of Moscow. The lessons are given on a one-to-one basis in a classroom, just like at school. We just use textbooks and a blackboard or whiteboard, on which she writes the most important things. For the first quarter of the lesson, I have to talk about my experiences in Russian. That is a very useful exercise. We also use Russian songs or newspaper articles about space travel, which we then analyse. I have brought two videotapes from Holland. One is about Amsterdam and the other is about the Netherlands, but the voiceover for both is in Russian. They are intended for Russian tourists in the Netherlands, but they are excellent material for my lessons. In this way, I learn something more about the language, while my teacher learns something about the Netherlands. She really enjoys that.

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