I'm teaching her together with her best friend whom she's very close to. When she's bored/sad/demotivated, she'll rely on her friend to keep up the discussion alone, and I've spent a lot of time trying to get her out of her shell during the past couple of lessons. She gladly joins in if someone mentions something that piques her interests in history, or Russia. She is incredibly interested in these topics and frequently speaks about those in class, even when they're not strictly relevant to the topic at hand - so Russian poetry might cater to her interests in both and combine them with what they're supposed to study.

Distraction is what I've tried to counteract her homesickness, which is why I didn't try to actively incorporate her interests into the discussion before and why I'm still not sure it'd be a good idea.

Basically, I'm not sure what to assign a greater importance here - homesickness-prevention or motivation.

Is that Rachel Maddow in your icon? <3