Abstract:

Foreign students who learn Romanian need, at the beginning of the Romanian course, a series of fundamental elements that will allow them to have a simplistic interaction. Oral communication skills are those that are formed at the beginning and are essential in the ordinary conversations of foreign students. Elementary aspects related to greeting, greeting formulas, elements related to family, housing, hobbies, clothing, shopping are just some of the notions that foreigners use in both social and academic environments, becoming familiar more easily and adapting to the new linguistic context in which they will continue, at least for a while, their lives. The present study aims to reflect some of the most appropriate methods by which these oral communication skills can be optimally developed, during the first two months of studying Romanian as a foreign language. Thus, students have at their disposal several methods of acquiring new vocabulary notions or the essential aspects of functional grammar of the Romanian language: the portfolio and the communication journal. The portfolio contains at least 10 materials attached by the student that will indicate his progress from the perspective of linguistic competence, but also of cultural competence, in Romania in Galați - a bus/tram ticket/a menu, a program at the theater, a leaflet promoting a cultural event, a photo of a poster.

The communication journal requires that each student keeps a journal in which he will write down the formulas/terms/expressions/grammatical structures heard in the academic environment, but also in the social environment with which he interacts on a daily basis.

The target group consists of 100 students of the preparatory year of the academic year 2023-2024. They come from countries such as Ukraine, Turkey, Kenya, Congo, and Sierra Leone.

The results of the research highlight the fact that the 100 students were optimally organized in the first two months of study with the two methods that inventory both qualitatively, the aspects assimilated by the student from the perspective of grammar or vocabulary, and quantitatively, how many new words they heard and managed to retain during the two months of study and social life in Romania, in Galați. The documents in the portfolio reflect short texts, written and then presented orally by the students. The journal inventories words, expressions, notions of grammar, in its two sections, so that the learners become more aware of what they know, but also what else they would like to know at this stage of their language development. The satisfaction questionnaire given at the end of the two months reflects the usefulness of the two methods, and the students appreciate that they were able to communicate more easily and collaborate with each other, because during the two months they were able to exchange information, compare the portfolios and diaries and they saw that sometimes, the frequency of some terms is different from one area to another. Thus, oral communication skills are essential, both in the academic environment and in the social environment at all levels. Starting with A1 and A2, foreign students need an optimal integration, with the culture shock being very difficult to overcome sometimes, and social inclusion becoming more difficult.

Keywords:

conversations, interaction, methods, questionnaire, research;