Lessons from experience: using Revita to teach Russian as a heritage language

Anuari de Filologia Llengües i Literatures Modernes, 2025

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DOI 10.1344/aflm2025.15.1
Data confidence 85 high
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Abstract

Teaching heritage language presents many challenges, one of the greatest of which arises when the teacher must work with a heterogeneous audience. Our article describes the experiences in integration of an intelligent tutoring tool into university curricula for teaching heritage Russian in two countries – Finland and Kazakhstan. The traditions of teaching Russian in the two countries, while different in many respects, share an important feature: heritage learners of Russian represent a sizable proportion of all students – which needs to be addressed both pedagogically and technologically. The work is based on the language-learning system Revita (helsinki.fi/revita), which helps students learn languages by automatically creating exercises from arbitrary authentic text materials, chosen by the students or teachers.