Project Work with Foreign Audience in Teaching Russian Language: Organization Experience of the Project “Symbols of Russia”

Abstract

The article presents the experience of organizing project work with foreign students within the discipline “Russian Area Studies” on the example of Chinese students studying under the double diploma program at Petrozavodsk State University and at Anhui Pedagogical University of the People’s Republic of China in the “Philology” fi eld. In the research work there were used methods of perspective modeling of educational situations, methods of interpretive and contextual analysis, as well as monitoring of students’ work during the implementation of the project and summarizing personal practical experience in the educational process. The article describes principles and stages of work on the “Symbols of Russia” project. The implementation of each stage of the project in the foreign audience, in particular the Chinese one, has its own specifi c features. The author analyzes some diffi culties of foreign students, who are not familiar with Russian realities, in their choosing symbols that refl ect the character, mentality and spiritual orientations of the Russian people; shortcomings in the independent selection of the material and description of the chosen symbol due to insuffi cient fl uency in the Russian language; mistakes in the presentation preparation; shortcomings in the report presentation to the audience. The article indicates linguistic and cultural potential of particular cultural, architectural, technical, and other symbols, as well as the ways of adapting the description of Russian artifacts for foreign students who speak Russian at diff erent levels, and gives some recommendations to teachers planning to organize project activities for foreign-language audience.

Keywords:

effective teaching methods, project method, country and area studies, language studies, symbols of Russia