Abstract:

The quality of modern education in teaching Russian as a foreign language is provided by a balance of many components, the most important of which is the harmonization of the educational environment, allowing students to build up a conscious attitude to their mission, acquire serious analytical skills, as well as an ability to model their own professional identity in various social roles. In addition to generating new hard skills and soft skills, students should build up a harmoniously developed personality with certain ethical norms and historically determined cultural values. The axiological foundations of the presented educational concept derive from the understanding of the language as a system of cultural values. The methodological tools include a number of innovative technologies used by the authors in their professional activities: game technologies in the format of the intellectual competition and/or cooperation, organizational and activity games, coaching, as well as project and team working in a multinational environment.

In order to achieve the set objectives, the authors propose the following types of analytical and assessment assignments which now are successfully applied:
assignments using the reconstruction method: immersion of the student in a virtual/imaginary situation of the past, when the student must describe in detail what is happening and his or her emotions; assignments using the transformation method: immersion in an imaginary historical situation when the student must describe his/her actions and reasons; assignment using the role-playing method: immersion in an imaginary situation when the student takes up the role of a certain historical figure and has to act decisively in the current situation; assignments using the test method of self-control/mutual control: closed type test assignments (to choose the correct answer); open-type test assignments (for building up the correct answer in the form of an oral/written speech product). Also, assignments of the "test quest" type are used allowing based on poly code text information, images with "encoded" information to activate the mechanisms of guesswork, and other mental mechanisms to gain new knowledge to increases the motivation for studying the subject. The authors use the framework of the excursion pedagogy, which is characterized by the personal orientation of education, digitalization of the learning process, an increase in the amount of information received by the student through the visual channel, a more important role of research elements in teaching, the predominance of the dialogical type of transmission of cultural information over the monologue one. We believe that the excursion and museum teaching methods can be recommended for use not only in a narrow sense (as a technology for indirect teaching the Russian language to foreigners), but also in a broad sense, i.e. as a technology for teaching the professional activity of a guide. Only through thoughtful and meticulous analytical work can be achieved a real tie between the learning outcomes and the professional standards. In this regard, the material of this study includes both educational and methodological documentation and original methodological work programs, as well as various materials posted on the Internet, highlighting the results of the professional activities of graduates of St. Petersburg State University.

Keywords:

Russian as a foreign language, guided-tour technology, cultural studies competence, educational environment, excursion pedagogy, museum teaching methods.