Professional Re-training Course in Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language Wraps up at SUSU

At South Ural State University, students of the Theory and Practice of Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language professional re-training course completed the defence of their final projects.

This program was developed by the Pushkin Institute Research, Education and Coordination Centre and the SUSU Department of Russian as a Foreign Language of the Institute of Linguistics and International Communications in 2016, and it gains popularity with each year. The course was attended by both Russian and international students, and also by the staff of the university.

“The professional re-training course has existed for three years already. We started with just six people. This year, the demand was so high that we had two enrolment stages. This time, we had 19 graduates, among which were Russian students, as well as international students from Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Algeria, Sudan, Jordan, and Iraq. They all studied together, which allowed them to immerse themselves in the poly-lingual environment and better understand the methods of teaching Russian as a Foreign Language,” said Head of the Pushkin Institute, Associate Professor of the RFL Department Yadviga Berezovskaya.

The Chairman of the Final Project Defence Commission was Yekaterina Shestakova, Associate Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages of the Chelyabinsk branch of the Air Force Academy military education and research centre. Yekaterina Shestakova noted that professional re-training programs in Russian as a Foreign Language are especially important in the current conditions of developing international relations.

“This program seems extremely promising to me, because relations between countries are actively developing, which allows people to obtain an education and build a career in different countries. Russian is being taught in many foreign universities, so specialists in this field are very in-demand. As a representative of a military university, I can note that specialists with a high level of Russian are also in-demand in the military. In addition, these specialists aren’t only needed in education, they are also needed in tourism and other areas.”

The students’ final program presentations were dedicated to the issues that international students face when studying Russian. The commission was shown projects for creating specialized online language courses, a paper on the difficulties that Arabic speakers have when writing texts in Russian and how to overcome them, and much more. The goal of preparing these final projects, just like the whole process of this program, was to obtain additional skills in teaching Russian as a Foreign Language.

“I am sure that the qualification that I gained will help me in my career in the future. Right now, I am studying to become a manager. I think that when I return home, I will be able to find good job in one of the companies that partners with Russia. I got to know new aspects of Russian and teaching methods, which allowed me to study better. My knowledge of the Russian language, I hope, will be with me throughout my life,” shared Hag Elnur Hamid the course attendee and Master’s student of the SUSU School of Economics and Management.

All the participants of the Theory and Practice of Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language program who successfully presented their final projects will be awarded certificates on professional re-training. These certificates will allow them to teach Russian as a foreign language both in Russia and abroad, which opens new prospects for their professional development.

Azaliya Sharafutdinova; photos by Oleg Igoshin
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