“From then I wanted to learn English so I could learn to sing it and play on the piano,” says Kourova, who grew up in Russia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Hungary.

Now a speaker of five languages — English, French, German, Russian and Ukrainian — Kourova has been an associate professor of Teaching English Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at UCF for 13 years. She also has been teaching Russian for the past decade.

“I really love teaching and my students. Teaching is in my blood since my mom was a home economics teacher,” says Kourova, who received an Excellence in Teaching Award from the Central Association of Russian Teachers of America.

As, she reflects on her passion and profession for the past 30 years. While the general focus of Kourova’s courses is language, she incorporates culture into her lesson plans because she knows it is essential for retention of the language.

Like many other teachers this year, she has had to adapt her instruction plan due to the pandemic. While she wasn’t able to host her typical summer trip with , she has been working to develop a virtual version of the experience, during which students usually spend mornings learning Russian and afternoons visiting local sites such as Red Square and the emperors’ Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

But for the past ten years, Kourova has included digital component in her intermediate courses — long before Zoom became a norm for teaching. Through a connecting classrooms project, these students email and video chat once a month with students in Russia while discussing a given topic, such as their backgrounds or schools. Kourova says interacting with their peers allows her students to learn Russian language and culture better and develop friendships that last long after they’ve earned their degrees. And since the pandemic she has been working with UCF’s to redesign and expand the project to include cultural games, interviews and more engaging practices through Zoom.

“[My American students] can see that Russian students are the same. They have the same ambitions in life and interests. People are people everywhere,” Kourova says.

At 10 a.m. on Nov. 20, Kourova open up a connecting classrooms video chatting session about the differences between American and Russian education systems to the . The event is part of , which will also include a virtual discussion on Nov. 18 with Don Gentile, Workforce Shaping Group chief, on the importance of Russian and four other critical languages in the U.S. intelligence workforce.

Kourova will be demonstrating how to make a Russian dish and dessert during a , which she has begun hosting this year for the Russian American Student Association, on Nov. 20 at 3:30 p.m. The student organization is mainly made up of American students who want to learn more about Russia, but also includes international students native to the county. As faculty advisor Kourova, helps members with language-based questions, applying for scholarship and fellowship opportunities, and consults on engagement opportunities.

“Dr. K is nice, kind and understanding,” says Alesia Lokshina, the former RASA president and Russia native and biomedical sciences major. “She cares about all her students and members in the organization. She is strict, but it’s because she really cares. She tries to make people do better, so she asks a lot of them.”

On Monday, Nov.6, Kouvora and RASA will also host a presentation on Russian culture and history through a virtual tour of the country’s embassy. and will include guest speaker Natalia Rydvanov from the Cultural Office of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Washington D.C.

Kourova, who studied at Moscow State University and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Montana, understands first-hand the high demands and struggles students may face with studying languages and cultures. While at UM, she learned new research methods that used computer data and published a book on the difference between Russian and American education systems. She also visited UCF for a language conference.

“Since that time it was my dream to live in Florida and teach at UCF because I was impressed by the university, the students and professors I met,” Kourova says. “I think I’m really blessed to have a really great group of people working with me.”

Learn more about how UCF Global is celebrating .

The Scroll and The Quill were separate societies in the 1980s at UCF; the scroll representing research achievement and the quill representing creative achievements such as published books and plays. In 2015, Faculty Excellence revamped the society, honoring legacy members and welcoming new faculty into this prestigious organization.

More than 60 faculty members and guests attended the Oct. 30 reception at the Burnett House.

“This society is a community of scholars who have continued to advance UCF’s transformational impact for at least a decade, inspiring students, fellow faculty and the community,” said Jana Jasinski, vice provost for Faculty Excellence.

The 2018 inductees are:

UCF’s STARTALK program, under the direction of Alla Kourova, an assistant professor of Russian, will be offered weekdays July 11-29 for 60 people in the community, but priority will be given to high school and UCF students 16 and older. Classes from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. will provide the opportunity to talk and practice the language in real-life situations, including during lunch from Russian café Lacomka.

Participants will have extra-curricular activities including field trips to American-Russian business companies, and cultural venues such as museums and religious centers.

“The benefits of foreign-language education are greater than a surface level analysis will yield,” Kourova said. “Language skills build a better future for…students in a way that many other avenues of education may not.”

The program focuses on giving students the level of skills that would be needed for a successful business trip to Russia.

“This will help students explore the use of the Russian language in the professional environment, learn about contemporary business opportunities in Russia, and understand the norms that are prevalent in Russian business culture today,” Kourova said.

Participants will be divided into beginners and students who know how to read and speak on the beginning level of Russian.

Exposure to other cultures is especially meaningful to underprivileged students who may not have had the opportunity to go abroad.

“Learning a language provides a cultural education,” Kourova said. “A student from a poor neighborhood more than likely has not traveled extensively and would not be exposed to other cultures; so learning Russian language for free in the summer program, breaks that barrier in a cost-efficient manner. This can change the mentalities of individuals in poor neighborhoods, and it is likely that many social issues would be remedied, as the expanded cultural scope provided by learning a language will allow for greater compassion for different peoples.”

This is the second summer of UCF’s STARTALK program, which is backed by the National Security Language Initiative. The U.S. government has listed Russian as a “critical need” language in today’s world.

New for this year will be the use of digital stories created by previous STARTALK participants and students in the study-abroad program to Russia. This year, 20 UCF students will go on the program to Russia to study language and culture.

Applications for the free program are being accepted through June 11. An orientation meeting will be June 30 at a location to be determined. For more information and to apply, contact Kourova at STARTALK@ucf.edu or 407-823-2472, ext. 2472.

The STARTALK mission is to increase the number of Americans learning and speaking critically needed foreign languages that are not widely taught in the United States. The intensive summer program was open to the commmunity and sponsored by The National Security Language Initiative and U.S. Department of Defense.

“The Russian language program at Ů��AV is an important asset to the nation’s strategic language reserve and teaches one of the critical languages targeted in the National Security Language Initiative program,” said Alla Kourova, an assistant professor of Russian who received an $89,000 grant for the program. “In today’s global community, doing business with other cultures has become inevitable.”

The students were instructed by Kourova, Tatiana Norman and Natalia Reilly, and students from the Russian language course, Anna Ramires, Jake Cranmer, Rebecca Kaiser, Gabriela Wolk, Alex Wolstenholm and Amanda Ans. UCF students who participated in a U.S.-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue Program earlier in the year also were invited to give presentations on topics relating to Russian culture and the history of Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russian names, and Russian Orthodoxy.

Students met three weeks for classroom instructions, extra-curricular activities and field trips. Each day lunches were prepared by the Russian café Lacomka in Winter Park, which gave the students a taste of Russia.

On the program’s graduation day, José Fernandez, dean of the College of Arts & Humanities, congratulated the students and presented each with the certificates and a Russian souvenir. Kourova said she plans to host the program again for the community next summer.

The U.S.-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue Program was led by Alla Kourova, a UCF assistant professor of Russian, and included visits to Red Square, the Hermitage, Catherine the Great’s Palace, Peter and Paul Fortress, the Grot School for Blind and Visually Impaired students, and other excursions.

The nearly $100,000 grant is ongoing, and this November students from the Grot School will visit UCF to study English, learn about American culture, attend classes, learn about the American education system, and take trips to a theme park and the beach.

Also this summer, the Russian Club at UCF sponsored five students who participated in a U.S.-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue Program to continue their studies of Russian language and culture at Moscow State University. All of the students have a minor in Russian studies and some have a certificate in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language).

The students and Kourova participated in a variety of workshops at Moscow State and visited the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for a meeting with the assistant cultural affairs officer, Jennifer D. Washeleski, to learn about career opportunities in international affairs.

Kourova and former Russian Club president, Irina Pidberejna, visited Rostov-on-Don, Novocherkassk, Russia, where they participated in regional conferences and presented in several workshops. Pidberejna also visited the office of the Ukrainian Down Syndrome Organization in Kiev on behalf of the Russian Club, which has been supporting the organization through fundraisers.

The federal STARTALK Program is the result of an $89,000 grant secured by Alla Kourova, a UCF assistant professor of Russian, and is available to anyone at least 15 years old. The program, sponsored by The National Security Language Initiative and U.S. Department of Defense, was established to expand and improve the teaching of strategically important world languages that are not widely taught in the U.S.

“This is very important because many students have never left Florida, and they need to learn another culture,” Kourova said.

The morning language sessions will be held from 9 a.m. to noon, followed by lunch provided by Lacomka, a Russian bakery and deli in Winter Park, and Russian cultural activities from 1 to 3 p.m.

The course will be in the Modern Languages and Literature Department of the College of Arts & Humanities with the support of the Russian-American Community Center in Orlando.

June 20 is the deadline to register for the limited number of spaces. To sign up, go to .

Kourova has a Ph.D. from Moscow State University in teaching English as a foreign language and cross-cultural studies, as well as a master’s degree in speech therapy and teaching foreign languages. She came to Ů��AV in 2007 as a visiting instructor and became an assistant professor in 2011.

She also is implementing a grant of nearly $100,000 from the U.S. Department of State as part of the U.S.-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue Program. Her project combines teaching foreign languages to U.S. students and blind/visually impaired students in Russia.

The project involving six other faculty and 10 UCF students traveling to St. Petersburg, Russia, next month is designed to strengthen mutual understanding and raise U.S.-Russian relations.

She has launched several projects through the years to show students the connection between the Russian language and culture, including hosting regular Russian tea gatherings and organizing a monthly Russian culture night.

In addition, she translates for the U.S. Secretary of Defense’s office in the area of International Security Policy-Eurasia, and last year she was awarded the University of Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award for the College of Arts & Humanities.

For further information about her programs, contact Kourova at alla.kourova@ucf.edu.