Abstract:

The problem of teaching a foreign language as a tool for obtaining a specialty and a tool for professional communication in a non-native academic environment at the postgraduate stage is discussed by both Russian and foreign researchers.

The Russian language becomes a key element of adaptation to the Russian educational and professional environment. The course of professionally oriented Russian language at the pre-university stage requires the formation of skills and potentials to new social communication, the ability to find points of contact of their own experience with the educational system and the worldview shared by members of the Russian-speaking language community.

This study is devoted to the problem of teaching Russian to foreign residents and undergraduates in the educational space of Russian universities at the pre-university stage. The peculiarity of professional training in the Russian internationally oriented university is that this training is in Russian. The most difficult thing for any foreign student at the pre-university stage is to adapt to the Russian educational environment.

The specificity of foreign residents and undergraduates as a target audience is of research interest. This category of students already has educational and professional experience due to which they have certain difficulties in adapting to the educational environment of a Russian university. Future undergraduates and residents should master Russian not only for general and educational, but also for professional communication, which implies the possession of the terminological apparatus according to the specialization for communication with the Russian colleagues on professional topics, as well as within the framework of scientific activities. For foreign medical residents, knowledge of the Russian language is the success of their professional activity –they are faced with the need to communicate in Russian with the patients and colleagues in the Russian hopsitals.

There was conducted a survey among the post-graduate foreign students at RUDN University Preparatory faculty; the questions concerned the attitude to learning Russian as a foreign language, the problems that students face during their training, as well as the content of the curricula and programs. The analysis of the research results made it possible to determine the main characteristics of the target audience, as well as to identify the factors affecting the adaptation of foreign undergraduates and pre-residents to the Russian educational environment at pre-university stage.

Keywords:

Non-native academic environment, postgraduate stage, Russian as a foreign language, pre-university education, undergraduate, pre-residency.