South Ural State University invites teachers of Russian as a foreign language, who are working in Chinese educational institutions, to a free vocational enhancement course entitled «Development of author’s electronic course on Russian as a foreign language”. This is a joint project of two subdivisions of SUSU: the Institute of Linguistics and International Communications and the Institute of Open and Distance Education.
The course is intended for practicing teachers from China who would like to use modern techniques of teaching Russian as a foreign language, and is held distantly within six weeks (48 hours). Upon completion of the course, attendees will receive a certificate on vocational enhancement.
“When elaborating the course, we decided to rely on our advantages – the big technical and scientific potential of South Ural State University, in particular, in the sphere of information technology. Within this area, it seems relevant to use the new-generation technology in humanities. Uniqueness of this vocational enhancement course is in the fact that we offer studying the specificity of electronic courses application precisely in teaching Russian as a foreign language. Using such resources in the process of teaching international students provides them many opportunities for mastering the material, and allows a teacher to implement the blended learning technology into the education process,” said Elena Doronina, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language of the Institute of Linguistics and International Communications.
In the first part of the course, attendees will study the technique of teaching Russian as a foreign language using contemporary technology. Attendees will learn about the main requirements to preparation of text materials, presentations, images, video- and audio files, checkpoint assignments (tests, individual and collective home assignments) for uploading them to the electronic study course; they will learn three types of competencies in the process of learning Russian as a foreign language, elaborate exercises for formation of grammar skills in al types of vocal activities, and create learning materials for students, which will develop linguistic and communicative competencies.
The second part of the programme is intended for mastering the technology of electronic course elaboration. Attendees will learn about the required structure of a course; they will also elaborate a fragment of their own electronic course. An important advantage of the programme is the fact that the many-years experience of South Ural State University in the sphere of electronic teaching means is going to be applied in it. The technology direction is headed by Deputy Director of the SUSU Institute of Open and Distance Education, Olga Elagina.
“We have long since had a supplementary education programme on elaboration of electronic courses in the Electronic SUSU system that we developed for Russian teachers. Using this programme, about 200 teachers had completed studying and created their electronic courses. Working with colleagues from China is a completely new and interesting experience. Specially for them, we adapted the content of the course so that it was more understandable and available for native Chinese speakers. Besides, we took into account some technical restricitions related to the fact that some websites might not operate in China. The course is going to be improved in time; we are ready for a feedback from attendees in order to make it maximally comfortable and useful.”
Therefore, attendees have the opportunity to put the acquired knowledge into practice and obtain a specific result – a fragment of one’s own course that can be applied in teaching Russian language to students from China. Products developed by them will be presented at a contest of teaching mastery. The contest will allow discussing the issues of methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language as well as sharing one’s own experience. The winners will be awarded with valuable prizes.
Within the vocational enhancement course, SUSU lecturers will hold a master class on using electronic resources in teaching Russian language at Tianjin Foreign Studies University. Moreover, events are scheduled to be held in other educational institutions of China. Aside from this, employees of the SUSU Pushkin Institute are going to organise webinars dedicated to methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language.
It should be noted that the vocational enhancement course is held according to the Plan of events targeted at support of Russian language and education in Russian, for implementation of which South Ural State University received a subsidy in 2018. The work is being done within the project entitled “Establishment and development of a network(not less than 8) of Pushkin Institute Centres in the PRC on the basis of organisations performing education in Russian language” in the frameworks of implementation of the event entitled “Subsidies for implementation of events targeted at full-scale functioning and development of Russian language” within the main event entitled “Development of open education in Russian language and Russian language learning”. The Pushkin Institute Centre is actively working in this direction in People’s Republic of China, where presently two centres of the partnership network have been opened by SUSU.