Buy a cassette or CD course that matches your goals. Some audio courses will focus on conversation and travel survival phrases. Others will attempt to give you a solid grammar guide. Depending on your goals as a student, you will want to choose the correct program.
Practice with your cassette tapes or CD's every day. Doing a little bit every day will help you retain more information than trying to cram information in a single day each week.
Utilize other sources in addition to the cassette tapes. Many free online courses offer visuals, practice tests and new video and audio clips. These resources will boost the effectiveness of the cassette course with no extra costs.
Invest in a Russian-English dictionary. A dictionary will be useful throughout the journey to learning more Russian, particularly for the times you get stuck or do not know a word.
Practice writing out the phrases you learn in the Cyrillic alphabet. This exercise will help you learn the alphabet and absorb information in another format besides audio.