Biography

Olga Jarrell is a Lecturer in Russian in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Utah Valley University, where she teaches beginning, intermediate, and advanced Russian courses. She specializes in curriculum design, accelerated language instruction, task- and project-based teaching, and the development of comprehensive instructional materials, including original video content for language learning.

Professor Jarrell earned her Master’s degree in Foreign Language Education at Karelian State University in Petrozavodsk, Russia, where she specialized in language pedagogy and second language acquisition.

With over 17 years of experience teaching Russian at UVU, she is committed to student-centered, proficiency-oriented instruction that promotes measurable progress and sustained engagement. Her pedagogical approach combines structured grammar instruction with interactive, performance-based activities and scaffolded communicative practice. She has extensive experience developing multimedia instructional resources, including grammar and vocabulary video lessons and interpretive listening modules.

Starting in 2023, Professor Jarrell has developed five university-level Russian courses, based on her original textbook materials, online modules, and instructional videos. Her recent project is the development and teaching of the Accelerated Russian Language Program courses at UVU. Through carefully designed, fast-paced, and intensive coursework, this program enables students with no prior knowledge of Russian to advance to a low-intermediate proficiency level within two semesters rather than the traditional four.

Professor Jarrell recently contributed to the Presidential Roundtable, “Strategic Change_ Adapting Russian Programs within the Present Higher Education Environment,” at the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages conference, presenting “Accelerated Russian at UVU_ Curricular Changes and Strategies.”

Teaching

Presentations

Awards