Russian as foreign language: to the problem of formation of speech competencies

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Russian as foreign language: to the problem of formation of speech competencies

Nowadays there is a significant body of methodological works devoted to teaching Russian as a foreign language with a great number of literature, discussions about methods of teaching and a substantial number of approaches to teaching depending on the target audience and purpose [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. But so far, the issue of the national specifics hasn't been studied in detail. Teaching Russian to Turkish students would certainly need a different approach from teaching it to other European or Asian nationality. In this context we faced this problem and pointed out basic challenges that Turkish students face at learning Russia on a bachelor level.

Teaching Russian as a foreign language aims to give students sufficient knowledge of the Russian language so that they would be able to communicate. Communication is done not only verbally (understanding the speech of others and expressing their thoughts in a foreign language), but also in writing (ability to read and write in a foreign language). This target can not be carried out without a certain volume of the student specific vocabulary and the ability to use it appropriately. Therefore, the work on the lexical aspect of speech at all stages of learning Russian is given a great priority. The acquisition of vocabulary is a great challenge, the major difficulties of it are connected with the following: - a great amount of vocabulary of the language; - the complexity of each lexical unit; - differences in the meanings of Russian and Turkish words; - the complexity of the lexical and grammatical organization of the Russian language. Russian language has 4000 roots, 11 thousand word-formation models and about 300 flectional suffixes. Thus, one of the main task is the correct choice of language material. In this regard, the adaquate selection of educational material is the first and decisive step in the determining the learning content.

Method

The Department of Russian Language and Literature of Ibrahim Cecen University has been functioning for only 4 years. The department was established with the recommendation of Ibrahim Cecen as a necessary institution within the university with all native Russian speakers teaching staff. The department was facing an important task to prepare qualified teachers and interpreters of the Russian language. The work had to be done from scratch. During this short period of work, the department has accumulated a rich experience in the techniques of teaching Russian as a foreign language which is reflected in a significant number of books aimed at the formation of the necessary communicative competences. Among the books are the following:

1. Rusзa Alэюtэrmalar Kitabэ: Эsmin Yalэn Hali - the manual presenting the set of exercises aimed at the assimilation of forms, meanings and functions of the nominative case of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and ordinal numbers for Turkish students who begin to study the Russian language.

2. Rusзa Alэюtэrmalar Kitabэ: Эsmin - de Hali is a set of exercises for Turkish students beginning to study the Russian language with forms, meanings and functions of prepositional nouns, adjectives, pronouns and ordinal numbers.

3. 55 Derste Dinleme - is aimed to develop listening skills.

4. Ses Bilgisi, Grafik, Yazэm ve Telaffuz Dersleri. This manual is intended for Turkish first-year undergraduate students majoring in Russian language and literature and oriented for the development and formation of the special competences.

5. Rus Dili Morfoloji. The manual is intended for students of the second undergraduate year with simplified and unified theoretical and practical materials to help students in development of receptive and productive language skills.

6. Rusya Tarihi (1917' ye Kadar) Ders Kitabэ is the adapted Russian history for Turkish students providing an opportunity to expand and deepen their knowledge with the lexical and cultural educational background.

7. Kьltьrlerarasэ Эletiюim: Rusya - Tьrkiye Kьltьr Diyaloрu. The manual is intended for students of first year with the level of Russian A2 + B1. The manual includes a system of exercises and texts aimed at reading comprehension and vocabulary training in accordance with the norms of modern Russian language.

8. Sihirli Masallarэ Rusзa Okuyoruz is the manual intended for those who study Russian as a Foreign Language in the extra-linguistic environment. Lexical Comments and a Russian-Turkish dictionary will help to broaden and deepen the knowledge of the Russian language and culture.

Findings

The Department of the Russian Language and Literature of Ibrahim Cecen University holds annual surveys to obtain the information about the motivation to study the Russian language, the difficulties in mastering the Russian language, the degree of satisfaction with the course of the Russian language and self-assessment of the achieved level of proficiency in Russian. Assessing the extent of their language preparation to study on the first year of bachelor program, the pre-university graduates say they think they would not have problems in studying - 77% of respondents comparing to 13% of respondents who believe that it would be difficult to study. Almost all pre-university students (94.5% of respondents) expressed a desire to continue the study of Russian, which indicates their high motivation. However, students mention certain problems that they face at studying Russian as a foreign language. Those are as follows: 73% of respondents noted that they experience difficulties understanding the spoken language; 25% of respondents experience difficulties in fulfilling homework assignments; 36% of respondents have difficulty reading literature; 65% of students experiencing difficulties because of the lack of the access to language resources, Russian language is used only in the classroom.

Discussion and results

Language material constituting the content of teaching is a set of homogeneous linguistic facts, which have been called the method of "lexical minimum". Lexical minimum is the word lists subject to compulsory learning at a certain stage of studying a foreign language. But also lexical minimum is often referred to the educational monolingual and bilingual glossary for those studying a particular language. Thus, lexical minimum is the minimum number of words that allows a student to use the language practically. To master all the vocabulary of the language is an impossible task, so teaching vocabulary should be limited and manageable. Then teachers face the questions of how many words should be learnt and what should these words be? The definition of lexical minimum of this language is the most important one among the other significant issues. The lexical system of the Russian language has the ability to be subjected to compression and still maintain such an important property as consistency. Therefore, the creation of lexical minimum is carried out by means of compression and minimizing the lexical structure of the language to a certain level which enables learning. The difficulty of minimization of the vocabulary for the primary stage is in the need to select, on the one hand, a basic vocabulary list, a sufficient number of words that allow to communicate. Although the selection of lexical material teachers refer to the certain linguistic criteria such as the semantics of the word, its frequency of use, stylistic limitations, ambiguity, word-formation and some other characteristics, a minimized lexical amount does not always accurately reflect systematic vocabulary. This is certainly due to the fact that the lexical system due to its complexity is the most difficult to define.

Nowadays, we have a great experience in teaching foreign students the vocabulary of the Russian language. However, minimization of material and organization of the vocabulary of the initial stage of teaching presents a methodological problem which needs further research and development. We know from our teaching experience that the first attempts to master a coherent text cause students considerable difficulties. They are often at a loss and lack self-confidence when they make attempts to master a non-native language. The situation if often complicated by an insufficient vocabulary, deficiencies in the understanding of the basic grammatical rules of the Russian language and an abundance of daily minimum vocabulary. Psychologists explain this state with the human emotional factor deficiency, insufficient personal experience and often the lack of motivation and interest. Thus, the systematic organization of independent work is of great importance in the development student's self-confidence. Careful selection of tasks for pre-text and revision exercises helps students to develop their sense of novelty, comprehension and perseverance in successful mastering the reading of coherent texts and writing. Moving students to work with individual words and phrases to whole statements and discourse, in our opinion, encourages them to express their attitude to the world, contributes to the gradual qualitative accumulation of experience in understanding the text, makes it possible to evaluate not only the final result, but also the novelty of the creation process.

Communication as motivated and cognitive activity is aimed at obtaining and transmiting the certain information. We would like to emphasize the role of discussion and debate in the process of the communicative competence formation which helps to master verbal forms of communication. It is known that young people are often led by the desire for self-expression, they tend to take great interest in discussions and exchanging the information. Using discussions and case studying forms of teaching allows, on the one hand, to satisfy the cognitive abilities of students, and, on the other, to organize verbal communication more efficiently. The analysis of the teaching materials used in teaching Russian language shows that the interest of the students increase in discussions related to culture, social issues, popular scientific information and universal values. Moreover, discussions give students the opportunity to express their attitude towards the subject, to express an opinion and to show emotions. Students should be able to ask questions and give adequate responses to them, to be able to argue, to defend his/her position. The methodology of the discussion involves the following steps: 1) Determination of the topic, presentation of the necessary lexical material; 2) Distribution of roles; 3) Discussion stage involving unprepared improvised speech.

All the mentioned teaching techniques help to form the communicative competence which is understood as the ability to carry out the language speech activity in accordance with the objectives and the situation of communication [6]. It is certainly one of the most important components of a successful mastering of a foreign language. This leads to two main trends of teaching Russian as a foreign language. These are the gradual preparation for mastering all kinds of free speech activity and the simulation of the students' motivation to communicate in a foreign language. In other words, the development and the formation of communication determine the success of language learning. The main difficulties and challenges arising in the process of formation and development of speech competence can be divided into two main groups that is organizational and psychological. Some students have difficulty with overcoming the language barrier, some may have speech deficit problem (lack or insufficiency of funds necessary for communication), and most have the lack of motivation. Thus, the most efficient and effective means to overcome the above difficulties and optimize the process of formation of sociolinguistic competence are the use of special "training" (speech) assignments and exercises with a communicative orientation and modeling real communication [5].

Suggestions

Today, Turkey is the state connecting Asia and Europe. On the one hand, the country is focused on modern Western civilization and is a member of the European Economic Community which has taken important steps to join the European Union. Also, it retains its historical and cultural identity and traditional religious values. Students choose the type of communicative language learning, providing training of speech activity in the communication process when forming communicative skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. In the classroom, students are willing to ask questions to get the information they need, at the same time to perceive and process it, relying primarily on the auditory (listening) and speech (speaking) channels. They demand long explanations from the teacher, prefer verbal presentation of the material in addition to the explanations in the textbook. Being mostly extroverts, students learn vocabulary and language rules more successfully in a team in the process of active interaction with other members of the group and with the teacher. Appreciating the interpersonal contacts, seeking to create a friendly atmosphere in the group, they like humor and jokes. Thus, in order to stimulate speech competence formation, the attention in teaching should be drawn to organizing speech practice with the tasks involve interaction and discussion: dialogs, case study, situations requiring the use of learned words, phrases, expressions, debates, discussions, role-playing games. All these teaching techniques will provide an independent and creative activity of students and contribute to the formation of their communication skills. Students are able to talk a lot and willingly, but with many grammatical errors. The grammatical structure of the Turkish language causes difficulties in studying the Russian language. Therefore, it is advisable to pay attention to the development of students' self control, the ability to correct their own mistakes and the mistakes of others. For the development of writing skills it is useful to practice dictations to ensure that students memorize the spelling of words and phrases, to stimulate their writing skills and creativity, different types of summaries, essays and short story writings are used. In order the skills to be developed successfully, it is necessary to make sure that the writing assignments correspond to the verbal forms where students have already succeeded.

References

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2. Kagan O., Akinshina T., Robin Richard M. Russian for Russians. 2002.

3. Polinsky M. Heritage language narratives. Heritage Language Education: a new field emerging. Routledge, New-York and London.2008. P. 149--164.

4. Zemskaja E.A. (Ed.). Jazyk russkogo zarubez'ja [the language of the Russian Diaspora]. Moskow/Vienna: Wiener Slawistisher Almanach.2001.

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