The Methodology of Teaching Russian as A Foreign Language to Slavonic Speaking Students

AbstractThe article deals with the specific character of the educational process connected with studying of Russian as a foreign language by the Slavonic speaking audience. Words phonetically close in related languages pose special difficulty for students. To learn them in the best way it is necessary to establish the reasons for such similarities, to define the character of semantic differences within separate groups of words, to describe the effects of common semantic laws. Using a number of methodological techniques helps to optimise the educational process and promotes creative activity of students. The aim of the investigation is to heighten an interest in learning colloquial Russian. To achieve the aim we have settled such tasks as to identify the reasons for similar sounding of such words in kindred languages (especially Russian and Polish), to investigate the character of semantic divergence within particular groups of words, to search for the ways to overcome difficulties while teaching a kindred language. Here we apply not only a comparative method but also a method of the componental analysis, which predetermines the identification of the common and different in the semantics of related Slavonic lexical items. The statistical method used in the work helps to reveal the degree of affinity of such languages on the lexical level and also to determine how certain common semantic laws operate