Abstract
Russian language teaching methodology finds itself at such a stage of its development, where there is a shortage of textbooks that use rhyming text as a unit for learning Russian. We feel the need for such educational and methodological tools, because poetry can affect the soul — it opens students up, gets them interested in their work, and stimulates cognitive activity. We have made an attempt to make such a selection of rhymed texts that will correspond to the program thematically, lexically, grammatically, syntactically, as well as encourage students to be creative; that will be interesting to them and, furthermore, that will reflect the non-linguistic reality. As a result of our work, we have established that rhyming texts in Russian can cover all the topics fixed in the teaching Russian as a foreign language curriculum. In this article, we present different ways and techniques for including poetic texts in the educational process as exemplified by teaching first-year students. The purpose of our research was also to demonstrate the potential ability of rhyming texts to serve as a means of practice not only in phonetic skills, which alone can have entire manuals devoted to. We believe it to be necessary to continue the research to create a textbook based on poetic texts on Russian as a foreign language.
Keywords: Poetryrhyming textsRussian as a foreign language
Introduction
When teaching a foreign language, text is the main object of study; in the process of working with the text students master a new discipline immersing in it, as reading or listening to a native speaker's work written or read for a native speaker is the very inclusion of a student in the language situation. The adapted texts are intended to prepare for this process.
Problem Statement
To date, there is a large number of textbooks that include writings on various fields of study (for biologists, lawyers, doctors, etc.), as well as a significant amount of methodological materials that engage adapted or original literary works for foreigners with different levels of language proficiency. However, most textbooks include prose texts, while the situation with poetic works is slightly different. Only a few textbooks were published where the process of studying is built on poems with a coordinating system of tasks and methodological recommendations. Moreover, rhyming texts corresponding with the curriculum should be added to the methodological piggy bank of the topic.
First of all, I would like to mention the book by N. V. Kulibina
Articles written about rhyming works in the last decade are primarily devoted to either poems for the A1, A2 level of language learning, or to literary analysis and country studies analysis of texts (Animchuk, 2017; Martynova & March, 2018; Pavlova, 2017; Razyvaeva, 2017; Sabaeva, 2017; Talalova, 2018; Tolstova, 2016; Vasileva & Zolotich, 2017). These works highlight teaching of English/German as a second language (Uspenskaya, 2011). And, of course, Russian as a foreign language for different nationalities, including Chinese, Vietnam and ect (Glebova, 2016; Saidov, 2020; Wu Thuong Lin, 2018). Belarusian authors also consider it necessary to study poetry in the Russian As Second Language classes, and suggest to devote five minutes of every class to poetry even as early as at the initial stage of learning. Furthermore, Belarusian methodology specialists have also been including song lyrics as well (Kuzmina & Rodina, 2011);
Research Questions
In this article we will talk about how we can get foreigners interested in poetry and how we can use poetry when we want curriculum accordingly.
Purpose of the Study
Our article is devoted to the description of methods, principles, and types of implementation of rhyming texts in the educational process. Usually, teachers work with poetry in philology classes, as well as at electives with students of non-philological fields in preparation for various extracurricular activities: literature nights, public speaking contests etc. The process of teaching a foreign language is quite time-consuming. It requires taking into account a set of factors starting from age, nationality, hobbies of students to providing the lesson with tasks that mix students of various levels of language competence and of different abilities to produce and perceive texts, without losing sight of the study specialization of students, as well as the level of mastering oral and written speech skills of students. .
Research Methods
The following methods were used in the study: contextual analysis, description, comparative analysis..
Findings
At this stage of development of teaching a foreign language methods, educational textology has become one of the branches of this science.
Scientists have noted an increased interest in the literary text, and they have allocated a certain place for it in the educational process back in the 80s: "Once, literary text was pushed to the background by a scientific text that came first in the search for the optimal balance of different functional styles in teaching Russian as a foreign language" (Shukin & Frolova, 2015, p. 442). This is justified by the fact that the main task of the educational process, ultimately, is to teach a student to understand authentic works, primarily texts related to the professional sphere.
The main problems of this area of linguistic and methodological theory are recognized as follows: «1) the typology of educational texts; 2) selection and presentation of scientific, 3) socio-political and artistic texts in textbooks; 4) instructional text commenting; 5) immersion of the educational text into lessons of Russian; 6) creating a book for reading in Russian» (Shukin & Frolova, 2015, p. 428).
Of course, one of the positive aspects of the text is the demonstration of "the use of the studied morphological-syntactic and lexical-grammatical constructions in their natural environment", which "acts as a sample of monological and dialogical speech, serves as a basis for building an independent statement, and is an example of the functional style" (Shukin & Frolova, 2015, p. 429)
In this article, we will outline approaches to solving some of the problems noted, and we plan to present the results of our work in a textbook that will include selected rhyming texts with a set of tasks for each work, as well as for groups of texts with methodological recommendations for teachers.
It should be noted that, on one hand, the methodological problems of including text in the educational process, and on the other – the recognition by many practitioners and theorists of the text as the leading unit of study provide the teacher with a wide field for multi-dimensional analysis and multifaceted activities. The literary text is beautiful in its depth, even though it often seems simple.
Based on the already developed typology of texts, we made an attempt to close the gaps of literary texts of different types and genres with works in rhyming form. Poetic texts may well cover a wide field of works of different types and genres.
So, what texts can be read in class? First of all, let's address oral folk art, which is abundant with rhyming texts: nursery rhymes, rhymes, teasers, tongue twisters, folk songs, etc. It is these texts that accompany the celebrations, which are usually told to students, and often even get them involved in such interesting events. For example, students of Belarusian State University like to celebrate spring very much. The second group of texts – works of art of various genres: poem, ode, pamphlet, epitaph, elegy, etc. The third type of works — rhymed greetings, poems written by non-professional authors, amateurs, on set topics for various competitions or literary evenings organized by professional groups or announced on the Internet. The fourth source of texts is the works of Internet sites like samizdat, since most of the authors at these Internet resources are members of the Union of writers or Russian and Belarusian poets (who write in Russian), but high-level amateurs also publish their works there, and out of those publishers select their authors. Engaging non-professional texts in the educational process will help students realize that writing rhyming texts is not scary. Besides, such creativity helps to express feelings, emotions, attitude to events, phenomena of the surrounding reality, develop a sense of rhythm, learn to combine words, etc. Thus, addressing non-professional texts in the classroom can urge students to try to compose their own rhymes, and will also contribute to the emergence and consolidation of the skill to distinguish "professional" poetry from amateur.
The principle of expediency helps to select texts according to the topics and sub-topics of the curriculum, taking into account the interest of students, the level of knowledge, national mentality, etc. The validity of the selection of the material depending on the tasks of the teacher is very important even when preparing materials for seemingly small stages of work. Even when preparing an epigraph for a lesson or quotes that reflect the attitude of representatives of different eras, faiths, etc.to connect those the issue under study, it is necessary to pay very close attention to the preparation of appropriate tasks and the preparation of the necessary material or selecting it from the manuals available to the teacher. So, for example, after students get acquainted with poetry, feel it, we can talk about what poetry means in human life, first of all, according to great people. The stronger the reference to the gravitas, the more standing the authors of the quotations become to students. Thus, the authors of quotations can be politicians, lawyers, historians (profession), Chinese, Turkmen, etc. (nationality), representatives of Islam, Christianity, etc. (religious beliefs), and so on. Also, we would like to pay special attention to students' hobbies. For example, students from Central Asia, in particular Turkmen students, are fond of boxing and football. They even take part in competitions playing for the university team in national and sometimes international competitions. Therefore, quotes by famous athletes are better to attract to studying, since their authors are authorities for students. In addition, it is worth mentioning the years of life of thinkers to note the significant duration of the time period when the importance of reading was evaluated highly.
Thanks to the ability of a literary text to perform an aesthetic function, the teacher can organically bring an educational aspect to their class. One of the advantages of attracting poetic texts into studying is their volume, which allows you to read or listen to the work for the first time in the classroom, rather than offering to read the text as homework. In addition, for the first time it is better for students to hear an expressive reading by the teacher, or by the poet on the record (if any of a kind are available), or actors (a significant amount of such videos can be found on Youtube). The reader's emotions can evoke certain emotions in the audience, which will create a genuine interest in the text of the work.
In addition to training professional competencies, the program also pays sufficient attention to general language and communication skills. In this article we want to demonstrate the study of poetic texts at the intersection of the following approaches: taking into account the topic of the section and a specific lesson; the list of grammatical questions studied, in addition, orientation to the stage and type of lesson if necessary. When selecting texts, one can be guided by different aspects. We have identified several aspects, the combination of which helps to select a variety of works: 1) topics and sub-topics of the curriculum; 2) conversations on topics for communication; 3) topics that are mandatory for study; 4) seeing the lesson as a process included in the surrounding reality, which allows you to talk about the days of the week, months, seasons, etc.; 5) different types of speech: text-narration, text-description, text-reasoning; 6) types of reading (introductory, studying, viewing); 7) forms of speech etiquette that are included in the program.
We were able to find rhymed works in all thematic and grammatical sections of the curriculum. In this article, due to the limited scope, we will provide an overview of the first-year program.
Ways of expressing a subject and predicate is a rather difficult topic. It is very convenient to use the example of some poems to show how short sentences can be, and how it can be aesthetically beautiful, emotional and informative. Not only classical works can be attributed to poetic works that meet this goal (A. Fet's
Topics about the weekend and working day can be started with a review poem by Samuel Marshak
In a class that is dedicated to a conversation about family, previously studied materials when students describe their family can be revised. When discussing what kind of families they want to have themselves, you can talk about student families whilst connecting poetic texts. Thus, the discussion of the topic Family will take place in an unusual way. Getting into a new environment, gaining both freedom and a lot of responsibilities, students can gain a different perspective on their families. E. Asadov's poem
Series of topics In The Dean's office, In The Office of An Establishment, At The Schedule Of The Activities In The Classroom, At The Lesson; At The Dormitory, In The Library; At a Restaurant, In The Dining room, In a Buffet, At a Café, At The Shop, At a Stall, At The Cashier match the appropriate poems: At The Stall by E. Asadov, In The Store, Train Car by E. Yevtushenko, A Hospital Library Reading Hall Is Open ... by Sergey Mikhalkov, It Happened On The Train, On The Bus, On The Subway... by Valentina Katarsina, etc. Considering the latter two poems, it is worth asking students to predict the content judging by the name and then compare their ideas with the actual themes and problems of these works.
We want to offer a series of questions on Maximilian Voloshin's poem
The topic In The Library contributes to the presentation of a poetic form known as an acrostic: "The banks are open to infinity,/ And to the alien world of the galaxies, / In a serene, mysterious, ever-flowing way / Books fall down from / High above the ground. /And when the distances become clear, / Opening the fateful writings for us, / The patient reader / learns about the only right way. / Books generously inspire a person, / the keeper of books is a librarian" (the Author is unknown). (The first letters of the poem anagram for the word "
Presentation of the topics of the second semester of the first year can also be diversified with interesting works. For example, let's have a look at the section
A conversation about mail can be started by watching an excerpt from the cartoon
The study of speech communication forms begins in the second semester. The structures used in expressing greetings and wishes, advice, requests, etc. are supposed to be studied. First of all, greetings, often in verses, are spread like viruses on the Internet on various occasions. Students, of course, should understand what is happening, and sometimes respond with congratulations to congratulations. Thus, in a class dedicated to the etiquette of greetings, you may not only bring various postcards from the Soviet period, but also the modern ones, with or without inscriptions, and also study holiday rhymes in order to determine the holidays that these words can be used to congratulated people on.
On the topic
We are committed to the idea that a non-linguistic situation can be used as an incentive to study educational materials when involving relevant texts. Early morning classes are simply meant to discuss the morning as such. The questions can be such as follows: 1. Name associations (words or phrases) for the word "morning" (from 3 to 5). What is the symbol of morning for you? 2. Name the word associations of the authors of the following passages (the words are in bold). What associations do the authors repeat? Did your associations coincide with the authors' ones of the following rhymes? 1) " Strong
We suggest students to make a prediction based on a name what the difference is between the following works:
The next non-linguistic situation is the correspondence of seasons and the themes of texts in the classroom. In Eduard Asadov's poem
When working with the definition of the concept with different syntactic constructions, depending on the specialty of students, you can choose poems about natural phenomena (geography students), for example, poems about fog: Igor Severyanin's
Also, from time to time, teachers can pay attention to the culture of everyday manners, including the
Conclusion
Poetic works reveal common features and peculiarities of national perception of broad-based realities: from natural phenomena, architectural structures, to historical events, natural disasters, descriptions of geological processes, human relationships, existential issues, etc.
By comparing texts by authors of different nationalities, meeting points between different eras, different peoples, different generations can be identified; which is of utter importance even if just to attract the attention of students to universal values, also show a solidarity among nations of native speakers and those studying the language.
Together with our students, we have started publishing a series of research papers that we plan to continue. Thanks to these studies, students' interest in poetry will only continue to increase, as translated texts of Turkmen authors will be easier to perceive by Russian-speaking readers, and it will become twice as interesting for Turkmen students to read the texts where explanatory and historical comments, as well as relevant translations for readers who do not understand the Turkmen language, are made by their friends or acquaintances. First of all, this applies to poetic texts.
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03 August 2020
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Sociolinguistics, linguistics, semantics, discourse analysis, translation, interpretation
Cite this article as:
Babrouskaya, A. (2020). Ways To Use Rhyming Texts When Studying Russian As A Foreign Language. In N. L. Amiryanovna (Ed.), Word, Utterance, Text: Cognitive, Pragmatic and Cultural Aspects, vol 86. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 112-121). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2020.08.14