Innovative Methods, Technologies And Techniques For Teaching Russian As A Foreign Language

Abstract

The article is devoted to the discussion of the problems of a higher level of mastering the theoretical material by foreign students with the help of innovative methods, such as “silent question”, scribing and storytelling. This work examines why “silent question” should be used at the lessons of RFL, how to organize pyramid and panel discussions in a foreign audience, how to make up a thematic grid for the text. It also provides an overview of the innovative techniques such as scribing and storytelling. There are different techniques of visualization: infographics, scribing and storytelling. They enable to systemize the existing ideas, thoughts, stories to shape them new forms, which are easier to understand. Visualization is actively used in presentations, for systemizing knowledge, for presenting new information effectively. Scribing is a modern technique, when the speech of the speaker is portrayed alongside with creating drawings. The main function of scribe-method of presenting the information is a possibility of conveying the information to foreign students in a quick, effective and visual way. Storytelling represents the formation of psychological relationships, which is aimed at developing an ability to control the attention and feelings of the listener, to highlight the right and necessary points. It is necessary for a story to be remembered for a long time. The use of innovative technologies plays a big role in the development of communication skills of foreign students, contributes to the development of their speech abilities and develops an interest in the Russian language and culture.

Keywords: Innovative methods, scribing, «silent question», pyramid discussion, storytelling

Introduction

Nowadays the mankind is in dire need for having the different views brought together, owing to the quick, active changes in the world. It is globalization. People need different languages; people want to preserve their native languages, not living on the territory, where they used to live before, to learn other languages quickly and persistently in order to socialize in the short term. These can be both analytical languages, mostly in Europe, and polysynthetic languages (the languages of Southeast Asia) or synthetic ones, which include the Russian language. All these modern processes, especially the new migration crisis, have led to changes in methodological systems, and made methodologists look for new ways of teaching the language, including Russian as a foreign language, in different audiences in terms of content, needs and age. There comes a time, which, probably, has never existed in the methodology of teaching the Russian language before: we are faced with the necessity of co-existence of several methodological systems, in some cases in the same classroom, where both students and native speakers study, altogether, in the same space. This very feature characterizes the modern education, if we study any normative documents, every document will stipulate the following: language education today is the potential of human development, is a chance for every person for personal and social growth, a chance to improve his cognitive sphere. Language education today is something more than just education; it is a way to know the world. That is why language teaching is becoming an insistent task not only for the university, not only for classes, but also for the horizontal space as a whole. The use of innovative technologies is possible not only for presenting the material to students, organizing distance learning, testing, etc., but also as a useful resource for teachers. This could include ready resources (reference, open educational resources, simulators) or elaborating material and providing educational services (the creation of learning materials, test designers, audience management etc.).

Problem Statement

The purpose of our research work is analyzing the innovative methods and technologies in teaching Russian as a foreign language, which will help teachers and foreign students to cope with some problems they face while learning the Russian language.

Research Questions

The authors try to answer the following questions:

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to find the innovative methodologically justified and proper techniques and methods of the effective teaching the Russian language to foreign students taking into account their native language.

Research Methods

The authors used content observation and analysis of dissertations, monographs, scientific and educational publications, academic research papers in the field of teaching Russian as a foreign language. The work is based on the analysis of pedagogical experience in the field of the studied problem, aimed at assessing the usefulness and application of innovative technologies in the classroom of Russian as a foreign language (Zakaeva et al., 2020).

Findings

Innovative methods are modern techniques that have come to pedagogy from other sciences. All innovative techniques are supposed to involve the element of interactivity, that is, permanent interaction between the teacher and the learners. First of all, let’s regard an innovative technique as a “silent question”. The foreign learners, who pass Russian as a foreign language, answer the questions of the examiner when taking a speaking sub-test. According to examination rules, the examiner is not allowed to rephrase the question and foreign citizens often find themselves in a difficult situation: the question has been asked, but no further assistance from the examiner followed. In order to avoid such difficulties, we offer to use the technique “silent question” taken from the experience of working with a foreign audience. The essence of the technique is as follows. After the learners have been asked a question at the lesson, pause for a while and, if a foreigner has difficulty answering your question, take your time to rephrase this question or help the student with leading questions. You remain silent, but with facial expressions and gestures let the learner understand that you are listening to his answer, give him time to think it over, to formulate the ready answer. The following innovative methods that we would like to draw your attention to are two kinds of discussion:

• pyramid discussion;
• panel discussion.

Pyramid discussions are organized at any lesson, when a question is firstly addressed to a strong student, then, when it has been answered, we involve 2-3 other students in the discussion of the asked question, gradually the rest of the group is getting involved in the discussion of the same question. Why is it necessary to have this discussion? When the question is firstly addressed to the strong student, the other ones are given time to think what to answer, to compare what they wanted to say with the answer that they heard. As a result, weaker students are not afraid of offering their own variant of the answer to the asked question (Andrianova, 2018).

Panel discussion is good, when we play a role game or a particular situation. Panel discussion is advisable to use at the lesson devoted to learning new vocabulary. After the students have been presented a new topic, new vocabulary has been read, you call 2-3 strong learners to the board and offer them to role-play a particular situation using new vocabulary. Gradually, once the scene has been played you ask other learners, who were watching it, to add the lines, phrases, probably some additional lexemes that seem to be relevant to this scene. All these kinds of discussion are aimed at involving all the students, even those who are weak, in the educational process, in the discussion. The use of these innovative techniques avoids any awkward silences and involves all the learners in the educational process, as it has been stated above (Samosenkova et al., 2019).

The next technique, we would like to single out, is “thematic grid for the text”. This innovative technique enables you to prepare your students to pass the sub-tests “Writing” and “Speaking” successfully in case they pass Russian as a foreign language for the level of knowing this language.

When taking such sub-tests as “Speaking”, “Reading”, “Writing” foreign students have to demonstrate their ability to apply the principle of compression, that is, to shorten the source text to a few keywords. According to examination rules, foreign students are not allowed to rewrite big pieces of the source text or write a detailed plan of it. In order to avoid such mistakes, we recommend using a thematic grid for the text at practical lessons. The text of writer Krivin (1968), which is called «Волк на елке» (‘The woof on the Christmas tree’), serves as a bright example of this technique.

The mentioned text is an example of applying the innovative technique of making up a thematic grid for the text. You offer your learners to work with this text, for example, or you take a similar one. First of all, foreigners should read this text and to translate all the unknown words. In the process of reading and translating the learners are allowed to ask additional follow-up questions, if the meaning of any lexeme is not clear to them. After the source text has been translated by the foreigners, they are asked to name the key words, which are important in their opinion, and which can be chosen from the given text. Special attention should be paid to the fact, that all the words named by the learners, we should fix graphically: a teacher does it on the board, while students can write down the lexemes in their copybooks or highlight them with a marker right in the text (Afanasyeva, 2018). It is important to fix the words named by the students in the order they appear in the text. The most popular words, which are chosen by the students while working with this text, are marked in bold. As a rule, foreign learners choose those words, which they know without the translation or absolutely new words. More often they choose nouns; however, the students should be warned that is better to pay attention to verbs, because verb in the Russian sentence is predicate, while noun can be both subject and object. The student, who chooses only nouns, can easily get confused who performed the action and who was the object of this action.

Thus, when the words have been chosen from the text, when they have been fixed, it is time to use different principles of compression. There are two such principles. Surely, we do not introduce scientific terms to the students, but challenge them to drop the often repeated words or substitute some words with similar meaning for one common word. As you understand, by doing so we shorten the initial list of words that students have chosen from the text, as a result, we get something like the following: the volume of the text is quite significant, but only a few words and maximum two or three word combinations become the thematic grid for the text. We refer: to these words and word combinations;

The students, who rather often use this technique at the lessons, gradually get used to it. And in the future, when they are challenged to shorten the source text in order to be retold, they do not face any difficulties doing the task. They easily cope with such sub-tests as “Speaking”, “Writing” and “Reading”, as a part of Russian as a foreign language exam for the basic and first certification levels.

The next innovative technique is scribing. This technique is applied by teachers almost at every lesson of Russian as a foreign language. More often, this technique is used when the material about prefixed verbs of motion or certain prepositions is explained. For example, when explaining the meaning of an ablative case preposition, teachers often draw something on the board, so that students can clearly see what meaning each of the prepositions has. «Scribing» can be successfully used not only when presenting new grammatical information, but for the revision as well. For example, students can be given a task, where they should complete the text with the prefixed verbs of motion not only in their right form but also with the right prefixes. In order to make it easier for the students to understand these prefixed verbs, the necessary sketches are made in parallel with the exercise, we draw schematically the person leaving the house, reaching the bus stop, getting on the bus, passing several stops, getting off the bus, approaching a building, entering it, stepping over something on the way, etc. (Bloom & Ryazantseva, 2018).

It is much easier for students to perceive grammatical information, when they can see the corresponding sketches. That means, that the scribing technique can be used for presenting new grammatical or lexical material, as well as when revising and consolidating the material; students can make sketches even during the test somewhere on the draft in order to choose the verb with the right prefix (Sakulina, 2020).

The next innovative technique is storytelling. This technique is best used when it comes to the cultural peculiarities of the country of the studied language (Rubleva, 2019). Obviously, at every lesson, teachers firstly pay attention to grammatical and lexical material, but it is impossible to learn a language without getting to know the national traditions and peculiarities of the country of the studied language. Certainly, we understand that the country of the studied language and its traditions, respectively, can be absolutely different from the national culture of foreign students (Vasilyeva & Fedotova, 2019). In order to demonstrate this difference in an easy and subtle way, it is recommended to apply the innovative technique, which is storytelling. Storytelling is currently penetrating from other disciplines into pedagogical science, it’s good to be used in the classroom, when a teacher notices that the students are tired, for example, at the final lessons or at the end of the class, and this is the moment when the teacher starts telling the students a fictional story (Manetu et al., 2020). There might be just one recurring character in such stories, which will appear in various stories, or there might be different characters. This narration may be based either on the real events or on a fictional story (usually it is not a secret for students); the most important aim for the students is to remember the essence of the main story. As a rule, in such stories we tell them about the students, the representatives of a particular national culture, who found themselves in funny, awkward, perhaps, even dangerous situations, while staying in a different country, the country of the studied language, and the reason of this casus is their ignorance of national peculiarities and traditions (Vyazovskaya et al., 2020).

Conclusion

In conclusion, we would like to pay your attention to the following: any innovative technology, innovative methods or techniques are good only if they complement the classical traditional methods of teaching, as far as none of existing innovative techniques gives students fundamental knowledge of the studied subject, in our case, in Russian as a foreign language. The authors point out, that in the process of using effective teaching technologies; all the above listed functions in the article are formed at a high level of understanding. Moreover, without the involvement of the teacher, they die and come to life only in interaction with the pedagogical functions performed in the process of pedagogical management of the educational process. Thus, a professional teacher understands that it is not just a person he is working with, but also an equal partner of the educational process, therefore he should know many different technologies of communicative education (Bimurzina, 2013). It is the teacher's creativity and non-standard approach to the organization of the educational process. It is considered that modern pedagogical technologies expand learning opportunities, contribute to the formation of communication skills, increase student motivation and optimize the educational process. The use of multimedia and interactive technologies for teaching Russian as a foreign language makes practical classes attractive and truly modern. We can conclude that organizing the class activities in this way plays an important role in the development of the communication skills of foreign students, contributes to the development of their speech abilities and develops an interest in the Russian language and culture (Bimurzina, 2013).

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