Abstract:

The “Learn Russian in the European Union” project, established in 2004, is a joint effort of Daugavpils University (Latvia) and Training Center LatInSoft. Only in the last 5 years, more than 220 students from Europe and the USA service academies and universities have undertaken Russian philology courses of various duration (from 4 weeks to 1 year) at Daugavpils University. A positive and motivating feature for students is the Russian-speaking environment in the city of Daugavpils. Communication in Russian outside the classroom allows foreign students to intensively acquire the real-world language. An additional advantage is living with Russian-speaking families, which allows students to expand their everyday Russian vocabulary. More than 100 families in Daugavpils regularly participate in the project. The project administration conducts systematic monitoring of the current communication process through meetings, questionnaires, interviews with both - students and members of host families. In the overwhelming majority of cases, interpersonal communication between the student and the host family develops harmoniously. The analysis of the accumulated evaluation materials allows us to highlight the main patterns of the development of interpersonal relations from acquaintance to the final stage of studies at the university.

The report presents an analysis of the main parameters of the mismatch in the perception of oneself and the worldview between representatives of host families and students studying in the "Learn Russian in the EU" program. The report analyzes the materials presented by 137 project participants - 50 families and 87 students. It should be noted that there were practically no unsolvable contradictions that led to the change of the host family. The most frequent contradictions were related to food habits and rules of everyday behavior. Less common were age, gender, or political differences. In some cases, there were different points of view on religious and ethical issues. The results of the study allow us to conclude that, in general, the worldview of foreign students and members of host families are different, but they are not antagonistic in nature and can be interpreted as “own - different”.

Keywords:

Project, Russian, own, family.