Kazan — summer 2014

There are some teachers of Russian who think it is not necessary for students to learn cursive. Here's my two cents on the topic.

The last few summers I have spent in Kazan with students participating in the Russian language program of ASU's Critical Languages Insitute. Our instructors are all native speakers of Russian and without fail they write on their boards in cursive. My observation is that second-year students who do not know cursive are at a disadvantage: they have difficulty understanding what the teacher is writing, and they copy information into their notes at a much slower pace than other students. They often turn to other students to ask what a particular word is on the board, and in the process they end up distracting themselves from what the teacher is actually saying at the time. So my conclusion is this: if you wish for your students to eventually study in Russia and be competitive with students of other universities, then cursive is essential.