Research Design This research utilizes a qualitative (exploratory) research approach which involves gathering and analyzing texts, videos, and audios to get concepts, opinions, and experiences. This type of study is frequently used to generate new ideas for the research as it facilitates diving deeply into the problem. The most commonly used data collection methods in the qualitative approach are observations, interviews, and focus groups. In my research, I utilized observation and interviews to figure out similarities and differences between Russian and English and what challenges are possible in second language acquisition. As a researcher, I started observing my participant`s L2 acquisition, and all the time I took notes simultaneously to identify her strength and weaknesses. It assisted me to prepare well-organized questions for interviews. After a week's observation, I found out that the grammar of English and Russian languages match with each other to some extent, and probably for that reason the participant was able to develop grammatical competence in several months. My observation was followed by series of interviews that helped me to get detailed information about my participant`s experiences and difficulties that she still had. One-on-one interviews were effective as my participant did not feel excited and answered my questions very clearly and confidently. In the initial part of my experiment, I started with a short interview asking her the “what” ”where” and the “how” questions. As she mentioned, the initial difficulties that she faced regarding grammar were related to “articles” and “to be”. The reason for that misunderstanding was that she had a negative transfer that referred to the interference of her native language and to some extent it was difficult for her to use them appropriately in the target language. As the subject said she used to forget to put articles or to be in the sentences. For instance: “I student” or “We friends” whether it should be “I am a student” and “We are friends”. However, she was able to use them properly after practicing several activities related to this grammar. In terms of synthetic patterns, both Russian and English belong to the type of SVO (subject+verb+object), e.g. I go to school every day. (In Russian, it’s Яхожувшколукаждыйдень). Therefore, most learners whose L1 is Russian easily acquire English as more positive transfers occur in second language acquisition. According to current problems related to grammar my participant mentioned the sequence of tenses as she is still confused in changing the tenses while reporting someone`s ideas. To check her problem in the indirect speech I asked her to report the sentence (John says: “I have worked in an international company”.) and her response was ( “John said that he has worked in an international company”) and then provided with the handout where she had to change direct speeches into indirect ones. After the first part of the interview, I decided to teach my participant to solve this problem. Through extensive research, I felt that reading activities would be a good method to implement. This activity was appropriate for in-class activity while for the out-of-class activity I used oral authentic interpretation. As the subject was my roommate I was able to teach her while we were out for different purposes and set her in various real situations, for example, I used to ask her to report the shop assistant`s sentences or what the waiter said. All the time when she made some mistakes I provided corrective feedback. The next activity that I mentioned earlier was a reading activity. The subject was required to read three passages and narrate in third person singular following the grammar rule. After each passage, I saw how well she could improve not only her grammar but also her speaking skills as well. My chief anxiety was to help her to reach advancement in Indirect Speech. Turning to the next part of the interview I saw how the subject was eager to share her challenges and the next problem that I was able to work on was regarding modal verbs. Both Russian and English languages have model verbs, but they are completely different in their usage. In English each model verb has its way of usage, for instance; must for rules, obligations; should mostly for advice; can for abilities. When it comes to their meaning in Russian, almost all of them match with each other. However, my participant used them inappropriately using the same model verb for different meanings. One of the examples that the subject misused a model verb was “There are plenty of apples in the fridge. You must not buy any”. She used must not instead of need not. To cover this grammar I decided to apply different interactive activities to provide meaningful input. The two activities named travel tips and asking for directions were introduced to the participant. In the former activity, I used a travel document which was full of modal verbs and asked the subject to highlight the modal verbs and explain their usage in the context while the latter one was a handout where she had to give a proper direction using appropriate modal verbs. In the process of working with the handouts, I gave explanations simultaneously. The last face-to-face interview, that I had with my participant involved her thoughts and opinions regarding our experiment. As she mentioned, she found the activities fruitful as they assisted to get clear input of knowledge formation.
