ABSTRACT
The opening chapter introduces the volume and its contributions and positions the publication as reflective of the societal changes taking place in education during the COVID-19 pandemic, further developing the conversation on student-centered instruction already prominent in the field of Russian as a foreign language (RFL). The chapter provides an overview of the contributions made by the authors represented in this volume, substantializing student-centered teaching and translating its principles into practice. This overview frames the volume as focused on three main principles of student-centered teaching of Russian as a foreign language: the importance of knowing who our students are, moving our curricula and assessments in the direction of student-centeredness, and the need for instructors to stay abreast of, and embrace, change and innovation in the field. The chapter ends with a summary of common themes and directions present in the volume, as they are seen by the contributing authors: meeting the needs of the learner, creating a learner-friendly classroom/online community, ways of attending to student beliefs and perceptions, novel ways of using corpora, use of videos, critical evaluation and examples of the use of technology, and employing tasks for the instruction of figurative language and for implementing student assessments in an online environment.
