Immersion in the Russian language at the Winter school

The Immersion in the atmosphere of the Russian language and culture, games and creativity at the Winter school in Omsk helped to rapidly develop foreign students’ linguistic competence. The unique textbook, made on the basis of Timur Bekmambetov’s sketch film, allows listeners to feel the variety of forms of the colloquial Russian language.

It is much more productive to learn the language and the specifics of the country when students study its varied culture. That is why, country studies are of great importance in the program of teaching Russian as a foreign language. It allows to develop communication skills in the process of inter-cultural communication. For this purpose, watching, discussion and linguistic analysis of various films and videos are arranged at classes at the Omsk State Pedagogical University (OmGPU).

Green Trees sketch film by Timur Bekmambetov, which includes eight novels taking place on New Year's Eve in 11 Russian cities, from Moscow to Yakutsk, was used as a basic educational material at the Winter school. It is possible to understand the film if the knowledge of the Russian language is above elementary level. The variety of situations allows to recognize and discuss various social and moral problems. Characters’ dialogues include lots of idioms, proverbs, colloquial constructions, which are actively used in the modern Russian language.

A teacher organizes the activities on watching some episodes in class, and offers the students to watch other episodes as their homework. The teaching material contains 45 episodes of the film with simultaneous text translation.

Summer and winter language schools practiced by OmGPU, allows to create a unique atmosphere of immersion in the Russian language and culture, which helps to the rapidly develop the linguistic competencies. Here, students not only learn the grammatical difficulties of the Russian language, but also make Siberian dumplings, autographed leather bracelets, play the roles of a folk tale, get acquainted with the traditions of Russian holidays. Such an outstanding scenario of the educational process elicit a positive attitude of the school’s guests, the desire to learn as much as possible about the Russian language and culture, creates high dynamics in classes. In order to develop speaking skills, which is the main teacher’s task, he organizes role-playing games, puts up mini-shows with not only dialogue replicas, but also songs, dances, poems. The atmosphere of a game and creativity relieves emotional stress, helping to rapidly develop the students’ communication skills.