Thompson Laurence C., Konick Willis, Gross Vladimir (eds.) Scenario of Ballad of a Soldier = Баллада о солдате: сценарий

Original Russian screen play by V. Yezhov and G. Chukhrai. — New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1966. — 154 p.For thу student of Russian the task of moving from carefully controlled classroom exercises in the beginning stages of a course program to the wide scope of regular printed materials is all too often a laborious and frustrating experience. It seems worthwhile to attempt to provide for this stage a reading text so absorbing in its story and so simple in its language that the student will be carried along in a pleasant and exciting adventure. At the same time, it seems most valuable to present a text that is exactly as its authors wrote it. without any predigesting or simplification. To create the sensation of reading almost as a native speaker reads is not an easy task: enough assistance must be supplied directly on each page wherever it is pertinent so that the need for time-consuming searching in an end glossary is at a real minimum. On the other hand, the aids must not take over the role of communication which, after all, must remain with the original Russian text, else a facing-page translation would be the most effective device.Making available as a reading text the scenario of a well-done Soviet film has seemed an especially important contribution to the assortment of Russian readers now on the market. While this book stands on its own as a reader, its use in conjunction with the film multiplies its possibilities. Simple viewing as a prelude to reading and/or as a culmination of study is only the beginning of these. A department that can purchase the film can make use of all and parts of it, in several ways, while the students are going through the text. Individual parts might be studied in some detail, the soundtrack might be run during language laboratory study periods. More importantly, sections of the film could be run silently, with students supplying the voices. Later, such silent running could be accompanied by a more original retelling of the story by a succession of students. (In connection with use of the film, it should be noted that in the filming certain scenes of the scenario were omitted, and in a few cases minor changes were introduced.) It should be apparent that this book is adaptable to a wide variety of valuable uses—from simple extensive reading to highly intensive oral practice. By the same token, it is easily adaptable to several levels of training. Enough assistance is supplied so that the book can be used at a fairly early stage, even when students may not yet have assimilated all the more complicated structural complexities of Russian; at that stage, a teacher could well use sentences of the text as points of departure for the deductive teaching of structure. At a somewhat later stage, the text can serve as an introduction to reading. Still, later it can be used either for rapid extensive reading or for intensive oral practise based on careful study.