October 26, 2009 - Recently, 24 sixth-graders from Boght Hills Elementary were treated to a night of Russian culture during a real-time web-conference with Russian students from West High School in Anchorage, Alaska.

The Russian Web-conference event was held in the Boght Hills cafeteria and lasted for an hour and a half. Students had the opportunity to handle Russian souvenirs and visit with their Shaker High School Russian Language Hosts, Shannon Krsege, Kaitlyn Castle and National Russian Essay Contest Gold Medalist, Anastasia Garceau, before the web-conference began. The purpose of the web-conference event, planned by teacher, Bonny Einstein, was to showcase the national importance of the study of Russian, and it underscored the fact that Russian is a popular language choice among American students.

Each of the students was interviewed by their Alaskan peers, answering questions such as, "What is your name?", "How are you?", and "What do you love?"

After the preliminary introductions were over, the Alaskan students performed an original play they had written especially for the Boght Hills students. This play included vocabulary tailored to our sixth-graders’ Foreign Language Exploratory (FLEX) curriculum and was an immense success.

The web-conference concluded with both groups serenading each other with Russian songs.