Abstract:

The article is devoted to the description of the multimodal textbook "I Speak Russian as a Russian: Russian Idioms in Use” for foreigners studying Russian as a foreign language, with the level of language proficiency not lower than II certification (B2). Phraseological units / idioms are special speech expressions that function in each language and reflect the peculiarities of the culture and historical experience of the nation. Phraseological units / idioms occupy a significant place in the lexical thesaurus of the national language, so a high level of language proficiency involves the active use of idioms in speech.

The idiom is a stable combination of words, the meaning of which is not determined by the meanings of its components. Accordingly, the literal translation of such idioms into other languages is impossible, phraseological units can only be learned by heart. Therefore, the understanding of idioms and the more correct use of them in speech is particularly difficult for foreigners who study Russian as a foreign language and have insufficient knowledge of etiquette and stylistic norms: often an error in the use of phraseology units puts a foreigner in an awkward position, thereby increasing the language barrier.

The teacher of Russian as a foreign language has to look for effective ways to present phraseological units and activate their functioning in the speech of students. In this article we introduce a multimodal textbook which presents innovative methods of working with the most popular idioms in the modern literary Russian language and we implement different innovative techniques when teaching Russian idioms. For example, new idioms can be introduced with the help of the technique of visualization. Working out the correct pronunciation and the skill of selecting an idiom in the flow of sounding speech occurs with the use of voice assistant.

The multimodal textbook also contains a system of exercises aimed at activating the use of phraseology units in speech. In case of difficulty in identifying idioms students can use a special electronic dictionary included in the edition. To systematize educational information it is divided into modules, each of them ends with a quiz for self-testing. The multimodal textbook "I speak Russian as a Russian: Russian Idioms in Use” was successfully tested at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) at the lessons of Russian as a foreign language with foreign students of both philological and non-philological specialties.

Keywords:

Multimodal textbook, Russian as a foreign language, idioms, foreign students, innovative techniques, proficiency.