Russian Comprehensible Input

Russian comprehensible input lesson plans and activities to help teach Russian in a fun and low-stress way. We offer lesson plans with short stories that will help you to teach Russian in a fun and comprehensible way.  Each Russian lesson plan includes a short story with targeted vocabulary and structure.  After reading and discussing the short story, students can do the included comprehension activities and story retell.  There is also a video version of the short story – one with text, one without.  Students can practice retelling the story orally by watching the version with text and reading aloud, then later watching the version without text and telling the story from memory.  These Russian short story lessons are a low-prep way to teach Russian through comprehensible input.

Each very simple story is told in two different ways. There is a printable text version, and an animated mp4 version. Tell the story as you watch it (pause if you want to stop and discuss or storyask!), or just watch it for comprehension. Each video is around 5 minutes long, with pause time for students to read the text. There is a second version of the video with only the illustrations – no text – so you can watch it and do story retells. With novice low and novice mid learners, you can tell the story as is. For novice high learners, you can add more details or write a parallel story. You could even use this story at higher levels by having students retell the story in the past.