Find some advice for teachers about the Kyrgyzstan chapter on this page, organized by page of the lesson. Click the plus signs to open them.

You can also find some materials for use in the classroom in our Diverse Russian – Kyrgyzstan Google folder. We also hope that if you have materials related to the book’s content that you are willing to share, that you will upload them to the “Sharing materials from users” folder as well.

General guidance and resources

Depending on your students’ level, you might want to spend 4-6 class periods on the chapter about Kyrgyzstan, though the material could also be used a little at a time if it is supplementing another intermediate textbook. However, if you only have a short time to spend, you could either focus on more general information about Kyrgyzstan (the first 10 pages of the lesson), or focus on the part of the lesson about nature. Or you could skip certain pages to shorten the lesson for your own needs. Pages that can easily be skipped: Кыргызские деньги, Статус русского языка в Кыргызстане, Города Кыргызстана, История Кыргызстана, «Сорокаплеменный народ», Добыча золота, Көк бөрү, Чингиз Айтматов.

Page: Kyrgyzstan: Basic facts

Страница: Кыргызстан: основные факты

Давайте поговорим!

Note that the map on the page has a slider that reveals the names of the countries if students need them.

Упражнение 1

You might want to review the instrumental case with students before they begin this exercise.

Page: Kyrgyz money

Страница: Кыргызские деньги

Давайте поговорим!

The page includes audio both in Russian and in the Kyrgyz language so that students can hear the difference between them.

Page: Kyrgyzstan or Kirghizia?

Страница: Кыргызстан или Киргизия?

This is an important topic for students to be aware of, especially if they are going to go on study abroad to Kyrgyzstan. After completing the activities, you could also have a discussion with students in English or in Russian about whether they know of other places that have different names in other languages. If your students have completed the lesson on Sakartvelo (Georgia), you could have them compare the situation with that of Kyrgyzstan. Or if you are not including the chapter on Sakartvelo (Georgia) in your curriculum, you might consider having them complete the 3 pages that are dedicated to a similar topic in the Sakartvelo chapter. Similarly, the page called “Прибалтика” – Как война изменила русский язык in the chapter on the Baltics has a reading text on a similar topic.

Page: Population and ethnic makeup

Страница: Население и этнический состав

Упражнение 2

You might need to point out to students that the graph that is used in this activity is imprecise in the sense that it only has data at several points throughout time, not every year, and so it’s not always possible to tell exact turning points in trends in the data.

Page: Interesting facts about Kyrgyzstan

Страница: Интересные факты о Кыргызстане

Упражнение 3

Students do not need to understand every word to complete the activity.

This activity has several topics that students could follow up and learn more about, like тайган (a Kyrgyz breed of dog), ак калпак (a white Kyrgyz hat that can be bought as a souvenir in many places), кумыс (the national drink), юрта (yurt, a traditional home), Kyrgyz foods like куурдак and бешбармак, and Манас (one of the longest epic poems in the world).

Page: Languages in Kyrgyzstan

Страница: Языки в Кыргызстане

Давайте послушаем!

Note that in the drag and drop portion of this page, only the names of countries that have Kyrgyz-speaking populations should be dragged to the map.

Page: The status of the Russian language in Kyrgyzstan

Страница: Статус русского языка в Кыргызстане

Упражнение 4

If the image is too difficult to read, students can open the accordion underneath that is labeled “Текст опроса”.

Давайте послушаем!

You might want to let your students know ahead of time that in the videos, some people speak Russian with an accent, and some people speak Kyrgyz and Russian subtitles are provided.

Remember that you can access the transcripts of videos on the page with all texts or the corresponding Google doc with all texts – Kyrgyzstan.

Page: Cities of Kyrgyzstan

Страница: Города Кыргызстана

Note that sometimes place names in Kyrgyzstan have several possible spellings.

Давайте послушаем!

Remember that you can access the transcripts of videos on the page with all texts or the corresponding Google doc with all texts – Kyrgyzstan.

Page: Kyrgyz names

Страница: Кыргызские имена

Давайте поговорим!

Note that there is an audio file with someone reading the list of names in Kyrgyz in case students would like to hear how they are pronounced.

Page: The history of Kyrgyzstan

Страница: История Кыргызстана

You may want to do a more thorough review of time expressions with your students before they complete this page, depending on their level.

Page: Nature: Words that you probably already know

Страница: Природа: Слова, которые вы, наверное, уже знаете

Упражнение 12

If students copy and paste words from the vocabulary list, they will need to remove the stress marks before checking their answers.

Давайте поговорим!

If your students need it, you may want to review with them how to talk about the weather.

Упражнение 14

On this page, we have included an activity that uses voice recognition. This activity only works in the Chrome browser and if students have a microphone, so if some of your students do not have Chrome / a microphone, we have provided an alternative activity. If they complete the first version, they can skip the alternative activity.

Follow-up activity

This activity would benefit from some art supplies like markers or crayons.

Page: Nature: New words

Страница: Природа: Новые слова

Упражнение 21

You might want to do a follow-up activity that has students work with the verbs and sounds associated with animals in Russian.

Page: Nature: Grammar

Страница: Природа: Грамматика

Упражнение 29

If students need to be reminded of the meaning of the phrases that they are choosing from, they can find examples in the orange box above.

Page: “The land of 40 tribes”

Страница: «Сорокаплеменный народ»

It’s OK if students don’t understand the names of the tribes that the Kyrgyz people talk about in the video!

This is a page that can be easily skipped if you do not have enough time for it in your curriculum.

Page: The mountains of Kyrgyzstan

Страница: Горы Кыргызстана

Давайте почитаем!

You might want to expand the topics that you have students express emotions about based on the history of your class. The assignment suggests that they find videos of places in nature, but perhaps they could also find videos based on some other area of their interest.

Page: Glaciers

Страница: Ледники

Упражнение 35

Note that both the related word and its meaning should be dragged to the same box. You might advise students to use the process of elimination to help them by choosing first to complete ones that they know.

Remember that you can access the transcripts of videos on the page with all texts or the corresponding Google doc with all texts – Kyrgyzstan.

Page: Gold mining

Страница: Добыча золота

Давайте почитаем!

If the graphic is too difficult to read, there is an accordion below it that contains the text from it.

Давайте почитаем и послушаем!

Note that most of this video is in Kyrgyz with Russian titles.

Remember that you can access the transcripts of videos on the page with all texts or the corresponding Google doc with all texts – Kyrgyzstan.

Page: Smog in Bishkek

Страница: Смог в Бишкеке

Давайте почитаем! и Упражнение 40

The drag and drop activities can be opened in full screen if learners need to see them better.

Давайте послушаем!

It’s OK if students don’t understand everything in the clips.

Remember that you can access the transcripts of videos on the page with all texts or the corresponding Google doc with all texts – Kyrgyzstan.

The video clips at the bottom of the page are generally quite difficult, so only assign the Follow-up activity if your students are higher level.

Page: Lake Issyk-Kul

Страница: Озеро Иссык-Куль

You could have your students make short videos about a place of interest in your city or state similar to the “5 interesting facts” video that they watch here.

Page: Nature on Issyk-Kul

Страница: Природа на Иссык-Куле

If students need to see larger versions of the images on this page, they can either zoom in or click the “full screen” icon. These images are also included in the Google folder for this chapter.

Page: What grows in Kyrgyzstan?

Страница: Что растёт в Кыргызстане?

Agriculture is another topic that students could learn more about in connection with this chapter.

Давайте поговорим!

You might want to review около + genitive case with students before doing this activity.

Давайте послушаем!

Remember that you can access the transcripts of videos on the page with all texts or the corresponding Google doc with all texts – Kyrgyzstan.

Follow-up activity

Note that the linked folder has blank maps as well as images that could be used to allow students to make similar maps about other countries. Or you could print the blank maps and have them use crayons or markers to make their maps.

Page: Animals and birds

Страница: Животные и птицы

Depending on your student group, it might be important to have a discussion about animals before beginning this part of the chapter. Some of the practices related to animals in Kyrgyzstan might seem harsh to American students, and Kyrgyz culture certainly has a different relationship with animals than many of our students are familiar with. If you think that this is a particularly sensitive topic for your students, you may want to skip the Охота с беркутом and Көк бөрү pages.

Упражнение 46

On this page, we have included an activity that uses voice recognition. This activity only works in the Chrome browser and if students have a microphone, so if some of your students do not have Chrome / a microphone, we have provided an alternative activity. If they complete the first version, they can skip the alternative activity.

Page: Falconry

Страница: Охота с беркутом

If you think that the topic of animals is a particularly sensitive one for your students, you may want to skip this page.

On this page there is an activity in which students read a simplified version of a text and then read the original text. If your students are of a lower level, you may want to have them only read the simplified version.

Давайте поговорим!

One idea to extend this activity is to have an AI chatbot such as Character.ai pretend to be a falconer and answer student questions related to falconry. Because Kyrgyz falconry may be relatively unknown to many AI systems, however, students should be prompted to look at what the AI says with a critical eye. My initial testing of this with ChatGPT gave results that seemed reasonable to me.

Page: Kok boru

Страница: Көк бөрү

If you think that the topic of animals is a particularly sensitive one for your students, you may want to skip this page.

Давайте почитаем!

This page has an activity that includes a summary of a longer article. If your students are of a higher level, you might want to have them read the original article after completing the activity.

Reflection

There are quite a few clips on YouTube about the American kok boru team. You could have students watch more of them if this story is appealing to them.

Page: Chinghiz Aitmatov

Страница: Чингиз Айтматов

Follow-up activity

This passage from Aitmatov’s work is quite difficult, so unless your students are quite high level, you would probably not want them to try to delve too deeply into the text, but if they have completed the previous page about kok boru and watch the clip from the film, they can probably understand some of the text. Depending on your students’ level, you might want to have them watch the clip before reading the passage.

Page: Logo

Страница: Логотип

Упражнение 48

The elements of the logo are: человек, олень, солнце, жайлоо, пляж, Озеро Иссык-Куль, ледники. If your students need hints you could give them a word bank and have them match them.

Follow-up activity

This activity could benefit from some markers and crayons. You could have them also create a logo for their own city or state and then explain it in Russian to their classmates.

Page: Let’s play: Kyrgyzstan: a country of discoveries

Страница: Поиграем: Кыргызстан: страна открытий!

This page is mostly for fun and to encourage students to remember what they learned about Kyrgyz culture. You could have students complete this in groups and see which group could do it in the fewest “lives” as a friendly competition.

You could have your students play as a whole class or in teams, or individually as homework.

Page: My favorite place in nature

This page features a Padlet that invites students to share with other students about their favorite place in nature, making a brief post in writing about it. This Padlet is public, and anyone can post on it, and the authors of the textbook are doing their best to monitor it and make sure there are no inappropriate posts, but if you see anything that needs to be removed, please contact us at diverserussian@gmail.com to let us know. The activity prompts students that if they want, they can post on the Padlet anonymously. You should take this into consideration as you give them this assignment, so that they know how to let you know which post is theirs if it is posted anonymously. You might have them copy and paste the same text into your course management system in order to turn it in to you. There is one post there as an example that students can imitate.