Abstract:

Socio-political influences and possible cultural animosities often interfere in the teaching process of a foreign language. The society-wide approach to the Russian language has had an alternating interest in Slovakia over the last seventy years. Recently, Slovak society has witnessed a gradual improvement in Slovak-Russian relations, which reflected in the renewed interest in studying the Russian language at Slovak universities. In this paper, we will point out the possibilities of using the innovative culturological aspect in teaching a foreign (Russian) language in the Slovak university environment. Firstly, we will deal with subjects with a cultural component, namely Dialogue of Cultures, Russian Theater, Russian Cinematography, Russian Music and Russian Art, thanks to which students acquire knowledge not only about the cultural and material heritage of the country whose language they are learning. In addition to this, they actively develop their language skills, expand their vocabulary, and improve their communicative and rhetorical skills. The paper will also present the activities of the Department of Russian Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, which, in addition to the main educational process, became an inseparable part of its everyday life. We will methodologically justify all events organized by the department in which its staff and students actively participate, and we will evaluate their effectiveness. These are the Evening of Russian Theater, the Evening of Russian Film, the Evening of Russian Music, meetings and discussions with Russian writers or actors of Russian artistic life, visits to thematically focused museum shows, interactive quizzes, language games, encounters with Russian traditional cuisine, workshops, festivals etc. The innovative methodology of all cultural activities is designed the way that students in the process of teaching language through culture and culture through language are not only passive consumers of Russian or world art, but are active participants of these events. The main goal of the new approaches and implementing various cultural activities in the life of the Department of Russian Studies is to deepen students' interest not only in the Russian language, but also in the literature and culture.

Keywords:

Foreign language teaching, innovative culturological aspect, Slovak university environment.