BOONE—High school students who have been studying Russian online through the N.C. Virtual High School have an opportunity to attend a two-week institute at Appalachian State University focusing on the Russian language and culture.

Appalachian’s 2011 StarTalk North Carolina Student Summer Institute in Russian will be a two-week, residential immersion Russian language and culture program held on campus July 18-31. The residential immersion program will help students further develop their oral, reading and writing skills. In-class and out-of-class activities will center on the theme of Discover the World of Russian Fairy Tales and connect it with the art and music of Russian culture.

Directed by Assistant Professor Irina Barclay, the program is made possible by $83,554 in funding from the U.S. National Security Agency’s StarTalk program, which is part of the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI) begun in 2006. StarTalk is designed to increase the number of Americans learning, speaking and teaching critical need foreign languages that aren’t widely taught in the United States. Russian, Chinese and Arabic are among those the NSA considers critical need languages.

As many as 95 high school students in North Carolina currently study Russian through the N.C. Virtual High School. Appalachian’s residential immersion program is designed for students at the intermediate level. Space is limited to 25 students. Those who are accepted to the program will receive free room and board and instruction from native speakers of Russian, as well as a small stipend to assist with travel or expenses.

“It is important to bring these students from across the state together in one place and create an immersion environment where they can bond socially, learn more Russian, and put their language skills to use,” Barclay said.

Barclay said there are many reasons students are interested in learning the Russian language.

“The Russian community is quite large in North Carolina and in Charlotte,” she said.  Students also have a natural interest in learning more about the largest country in the world and its rich literary and musical heritage. “Language is one of the cultural bridges between people,” she said.

This is the second StarTalk grant Appalachian’s Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures has received. In 2008 the department received funding for a Chinese language summer institute for high school students.

For more information about the summer Russian language institute, visit http://camps.appstate.edu/academic/fairytales.php or contact Barclay at barclayiy@appstate.edu.

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