2021 National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest (NPSREC)This contest, established in 1999 by ACTR, has become a signature Russian language contest for post-secondary students around the country. Students taking Russian in accredited colleges and universities are invited to participate in the annual National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest sponsored by the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR).
Important Dates and Information
Quick Links
Registration
Administering the Contest Submitting the Essays and "Student Declaration and Waiver" Forms Evaluation of the Essays Overview of Categories and Levels Instructors must register their students through the link below. The deadline for registering students for the 2020 National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest is TBD. Instructors at an institution with at least one current ACTR member, with paid dues, are qualified to register students. There is a non-refundable $5.00 registration fee for each participating student. No late registrations will be accepted.
Participating instructors will receive student codes, directions, and the essay topic on January TBD. Students should not receive the essay topic until the scheduled time of the contest. All contest participants within the same institution and Russian language course must write their essays in an hour on any day between TBD, as determined by the participating instructor. Essays must be written legibly on lined paper, the template for which will be emailed along with the directions for administering the contest on TBD. Students are not allowed to consult any books, notes, or outside sources to write their essays, and may not work together. Instructors may not substitute students for those registered. No refunds are available for students who do not show up for the essay contest.
All essays must be submitted as specified here:
Note:
Failure to use the correct file naming convention or incorrectly filing an essay will result in automatic disqualification of the misfiled essay. All essays will be evaluated anonymously; no essay will be identifiable by the name or institution of the student who wrote it. Three judges in Moscow will evaluate essays according to content (the ability to express ideas in Russian and communicate information about the topic) and length, lexicon, syntax, structure (grammatical and orthographic accuracy), and originality or creativity. The judges' results are expected by TBD, and winners will be announced around TBD in the ACTR Newsletter and on ACTR website. Gold, silver, bronze, and honorable mention certificates will be awarded for the best essays at each Category and Level.
Instructors must place their contest participants into the appropriate CATEGORY and LEVEL.
OVERVIEW OF CATEGORIES AND LEVELS
There are three CATEGORIES:
The LEVELS for Categories A and B are based on the number of contact hours of formal Russian language instruction at the time of the essay contest, including high school. See below for the criteria. The LEVELS for Category C are based on the degree of exposure to Russian and contact hours of formal Russian language instruction in college only. See below for the criteria. For study abroad or other immersion programs: Calculate the number of contact hours of formal language instruction, multiply that number by 2, and use the result as the total number of contact hours. Category A: Students who do not and did not ever speak Russian or any other Slavic language at home.
Category B: Heritage speakers of a Slavic language other than Russian AND/OR native speakers of languages of the former Soviet Union who have had some prior experience with Russian.
Category C: Students who were born to Russian speaking families and received most or all of their education in English. These students did not have any formal instruction in Russian before college.
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CONTEST FORMS
CONTACT US
Registration inquiries: Dr. Jennifer Bown jennifer_bown@byu.edu Category placement inquiries: Dr. Alla Smyslova as2157@columbia.edu Submission inquiries: Dr. Nina Bond nbond@fandm.edu |