For the fourteenth time in a row Russians have been writing Total Dictation. It’s an action in which everyone can check its knowledge of the Russian language. Annually, SUSU acts as a venue of carrying out this large-scale educational event.
“People who participate in this action feel the need for interaction with their mother tongue and native culture, which lacks in the process of modern communication,” shares her opinion the lecturer of the SUSU Department of Russian Language and Literature Alena Tezina.
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The action enjoys great popularity. More than 140 000 people take part in it throughout the country. Students and schoolchildren are one of the most active participants of this action. An eleven-year-old Egor, a fourth grade pupil, has become the youngest participant this year. The boy has tried his hand in the All-Russian dictation for the first time:
“My parents have wanted to check how literate I am. It was difficult, especially in writing some words. I think that I will try once again next year.”
The author of the text comprising of three parts was Leonid Yuzefovich, a Russian writer, script writer, historian, author of detective and historical novels. The participants were randomly suggested to write one part of the text “The city on the river”: “Saint Petersburg. Neva”, “Perm. Kama”, “Ulan-Ude. Selenga”. At first, the dictation participants listened to the author reading of the text, and then wrote at dictation of the University’s philologists.
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“The text wasn’t difficult this year. Of course, there were many options of punctuation, but all acceptable punctuation marks were taken into account during the check,” believes Alena Tezina. “Besides, complex, to the author’s point of view, words were being posted in the official group Vkontakte for two weeks. So, in terms of theory the participants could be prepared in this matter.”
Today SUSU is also one of the largest venues of Total Dictation for foreign students. This year they have been provided an opportunity to take TruD test, an adapted variant of the complete version of the dictation.
“I have never taken part in this event before. My impressions are good. I enjoyed writing a dictation. I have answered all questions and hope to get a good mark,” says an Iraqi student Al-Abujanash Kusai.
It should be noted that Total Dictation is an annual educational action in the form of a voluntary dictation for everyone.
The purpose of the action is to show that being literate is important for everyone, convince that learn Russian is not an easy task, but it’s exciting and useful, unite all people who can and want to write and speak Russian.
Total Dictation is a public project which is conducted by efforts of activists and volunteers. The action organizer is a fund ‘Total Dictation’ (Novosibirsk). Specially for the action every year famous writers write a text for the Total Dictation. Anyone can take part in the dictation, regardless of age, sex, education, religion, occupation, marital status, interests and political views.