Abstract:

The article examines the role of teaching the basics of translation within a course of Russian as a foreign language for non-philologist graduate students. Due to the spread of digitization accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, we focus on the e-learning form of the course supported by the Telecommunicational Learning Management System (TUIS) developed at RUDN University.

The paper lays out the main linguistic and methodological principles of the discipline and gives guidelines for selecting and sequencing vocabulary, grammar and text material based upon methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language which take into account the student’s communicative needs in various areas: academic, professional, sociocultural. The purpose of the paper is to give methodological clues and help overcome issues while teaching scientific and technical translation to intermediate-level audience specializing in different areas of engineering and speaking different native languages. The proposed practical framework is aimed at helping identify essential factors influencing the translator's choices and allowing for a better understanding of the main translation techniques, such as lexical substitution or grammar compensation.

We believe that the use of translation contributes not only to students' proficiency in both source and target languages, but also builds the ability to think in the context of two cultures, increases the sociocultural component of their communicative competence and expands mental horizons.

Keywords:

Teaching translation, Russian as a foreign language, distant learning.