Modern Teaching of Russian for Specific Purposes: Problems and Prospects

This paper presents the results of a critical analysis of the current status of teaching Russian for Specific Purposes (RSP) at the faculties of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Serbia. Teaching Russian for Specific Purposes is viewed as a system of inter-connected and well-organized components of the teaching process, with a special emphasis being placed on the functioning of individual components within the system and the particularities in the functioning of the teaching process as a whole. The issues which are the topic of the research have been analysed from the theoretical-conceptual and the evaluation-based perspectives. The former perspective encompasses the scientific, theoretical and methodological bases of the system of teaching Russian for Specific Purposes at tertiary level, and represents an attempt at constructing an optimal model of teaching Russian for Specific Purposes in the area of the Humanities and Social Sciences. The latter aspect includes the analysis and evaluation of the current state in the given area, as well as the evaluation and correction of the valid normative documents and Russian language textbooks and reference books for the given educational profile. The results of the research have shown that the current status of Russian for Specific Purposes at Serbian faculties of Social Sciences and the Humanities requires multiple corrections and improvement. Therefore, the suggestions and conceptual solutions offered in this paper aim at improving the current status and the existing ways of teaching the language for specific purposes at the above-mentioned faculties