The idea is to center teaching around the verb system; what makes such efforts relevant is the current lack of a single concept and clearly defined criteria for isolating and describing uniform information blocks when teaching Russian, whether as first or second language. The goal hereof is to combine teaching experience and psycholinguistics for connecting the conceptual framework with the formal and grammatical aspects of the language and to find ways to describe and structure vocabulary and grammar with the verb-based phrases as a foundation. For the first time, the verb rather than the conversation topic serves as their foundation to build an utterance. The verb serves not only as the grammatical anchor but also as the starting point for phrase understanding and memorizing. Research herein is mainly analytical but uses distribution and contextual analysis. Testing the developed strategy, the authors hand-picked and structured study materials, defined minimum context, made verbs lists. Two textbooks by the authors hereof are built on the approach key principles to teaching vocabulary and grammar.