Teaching African students Russian at the Center for Open Education in the Republic of Ivory Coast

Gaponova Zhanna Konstantinovna ORCID: 0000-0001-9248-226X PhD in Philology Associate Professor of Russian Language Department, Dean of Faculty of Russian Philology and Culture, Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushinsky 150014, Russia, Yaroslavl region, Yaroslavl, nab. Kotoroslnaya, 66, room 309 jangap1@mail.ru

Serogodskaya Anastasiya Alekseevna ORCID: 0000-0002-0619-2352 Assistent of Russian Language Department, Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushinsky 150014, Russia, Yaroslavl region, Yaroslavl, nab. Kotoroslnaya, 66, room 316 atlas_fill@mail.ru

Introduction

One of the important tasks of the Russian Federation in the field of international cooperation is the task of increasing economic, political, and cultural ties between Russia and the states of the African continent, including in the field of education. French is the official language in C?te d'Ivoire, and interest in the Russian language is just beginning to emerge, including through activities related to the implementation of the goals and objectives of the state program of the Russian Federation "Development of Education" (http://government.ru/rugovclassifier/860/events /), aimed at the full functioning and development of the Russian language in friendly countries. Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University named after K.D. Ushinsky (YAGPU named after K.D. Ushinsky), in accordance with the tasks set by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation for the implementation of an educational and educational mission in different countries of the world, initiated the opening on October 9, 2023 of the Center for Open Education in C?te d'Ivoire on the basis of universities (Universit? m?thodiste de C?te d'Ivoire, Universit? F?lix Houphou?t-Boigny, ETIC University).

Russian Russian is an increasing interest in learning the Russian language in West African countries (for example, in Senegal, the Republic of Mali, Ghana, and Tanzania): "the Russian language, against the background of other foreign languages studied in local universities and secondary educational institutions, confidently retains second place after English" ^{[1, p. 40]}. Thus, Sukhova O. V., Doumbia S. note among the reasons for the increased attention to the study of the Russian language an increase in the number of Russian-African projects in the field of economics, politics, education, culture; an increase in the number of Russian-speaking tourists in Africa and the Republic of Mali; an increase in the popularity of teaching Africans in educational institutions of the Russian Federation ^[2]. Russian Russian language teaching system was built in some African countries back in Soviet times (for example, in the Republic of Mali), but in Abidjan, the economic capital of the Republic of Ivory Coast, there is still no full-fledged Russian language teaching system, it has to be created from scratch: interest in learning Russian among local residents of the republic begins Recently, it has been increasing due to the active assistance of the Russian Federation to African countries, as well as the development of economic and cultural ties between Russia and the republic. Russian Russian language learning prospects and Ivorians' learning in Russian can become favorable conditions for the development of bilateral relations between the countries. A number of agreements have been signed between Russia and the Republic of C?te d'Ivoire, for example, the agreement on cultural and scientific cooperation dated December 14, 1995, which makes it possible to activate the vector of successful international cooperation. The relevance of the topic of this article is related to the search for answers to questions of concern to RCT teachers and discussed at round tables, seminars, conferences dedicated to RCT teaching in African countries: the choice of effective and ethnically oriented methodological educational complexes, teaching techniques and methods, as well as the organization of the educational process taking into account the national characteristics of students. The purpose of this study is due to the authors' desire to describe approaches to teaching Ivorians the Russian language from scratch and the practice of working with African students, which allows to intensify the language learning process, optimize the amount of material studied, choose effective methods and techniques, and offer practical advice to RCT teachers beginning to explore the African continent. Russian Russian To achieve the above-mentioned research goal, it was necessary to solve the following tasks: to describe the characteristics of the contingent of students at the universities of the Republic of C?te d'Ivoire and their needs in learning the Russian language, to analyze the dynamics of demand for learning the Russian language in the Republic of C?te d'Ivoire, to identify textbooks and manuals relevant to solving educational problems, to describe techniques and technologies that are effective for the Ivorian audience, to formulate the prospects for the promotion of the Russian language in the Republic of C?te d'Ivoire. The solution of the tasks set determined the choice of research methods: questionnaires, observation, statistical methods of processing results, comparison, generalization of practical experience in teaching Russian to foreign students. The study also used "the method of unconscious internal observation ^{[3, p. 40]} (Zarochentsev, Khudyakov, 2005, p. 40), the essence of which is contact with observed subjects who are not aware of the role of the observer" ^{[4, p. 81]}. The method was used in this study in order to obtain feedback and comments from adult learners about the textbooks they worked with in the classroom. The teachers recorded spontaneous, natural, relaxed remarks about the content of textbooks, specific exercises, ways of presenting the material, and the structure of the textbook.

The material for the article was the results of surveys of Ivorian students, as well as their own observations of the students' reaction to the tasks offered by the teacher during classroom work with students, providing professional reflection of teachers.

The research is based on the principles of competence-based, communicative-activity and ethnocentric approaches in teaching Russian as a foreign language. The theoretical basis of the study was the work of O. N. Velikanova ^[5], O. D. Vishnyakova ^[6], N. D. Galskova ^[7], T. I. Kapitonova ^[8], N. V. Kudasova ^[9], V. T. Markov ^[10], A. N. Shchukin ^[11], performed in in line with modern linguodidactics, which makes it possible to implement the basic principles of teaching a non-native language in new socio-cultural conditions. The linguistic methodological development of the materials presented in the article was based on the main provisions of linguistic and communicative studies. The formation of communicative behavior skills (communicative behavioral skills) was considered by us in the context of the formation of communicative ^{[12; 13]}, intercultural communicative ^{[14; 15; 16]}, linguistic and socio-cultural ^{[17; 18]} competencies of foreign language learners.

Discussion and results

In the course of working with African students at the Center for Open Education in the Republic of Ivory Coast and Ivorians who came to study Russian at the Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushinsky (9 students), we conducted two surveys, the results of which were taken into account when forming (making changes) the curriculum, choosing educational materials, in particular Russian Russian, including textbooks and manuals, methods and techniques of work that make it possible to interest Africans in learning the Russian language, show its beauty, neutralize fear of learning difficulties and arouse interest in Russia and Russian culture. The surveys were conducted in French, as students were just starting to learn Russian. The first survey (October 10-15, 2023) was aimed at identifying and describing the basic needs for learning the Russian language, and also contained questions related to the description of the contingent of students themselves (age, gender, level and direction of education). The second survey (November 10-15) was aimed at researching the relevance of the material chosen by teachers for learning the Russian language, evaluating the proposed forms of work, and identifying the preferences of Ivorian students in educational materials. In addition, after each lesson, reflection was conducted: teachers were asked to evaluate the classes, express their own emotions after completing certain tasks. Let's take a closer look at some aspects of the survey, the results of which influenced the work of RCT teachers with an African audience.

287 people aged 17 to 29 took part in the surveys (among them 9 students who came to study in Russia). Male students predominated (71.8%). The level of education of those who want to learn Russian: undergraduate students (87%), lyceum students, undergraduates. Areas of education: technical, medical, legal, humanitarian, theological profiles. Economic and managerial sciences, law are the most common study profiles for Ivorian students who started learning Russian at the Open Education Center (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Specialization of Ivorian students studying Russian in C?te d'Ivoire

Knowledge about the professional training of students is necessary for an RCT teacher, since one of the most important motivational components in the adult learning process is the understanding that the language being studied is necessary for the realization of their needs and requirements. In this regard, as R.P. Milrud emphasizes, "the imposition of educational content that is not related to responding to personal life challenges can cause resistance and even refusal to further study a language course" ^[19].

Education in Russia, according to residents of the Republic of Ivory Coast, is cheaper than in France, Switzerland and Canada, so both students and their parents are increasingly thinking about learning Russian and continuing their studies in the territory of the Russian Federation. According to the survey, the prevailing number of students choose Russian to study in Russia (87%) in order to get the opportunity to work in the territory of the Russian Federation (59%). Russian Russian is also considered by Ivorian students as a need to satisfy interest in the linguistic picture of the world (74%), Russian culture (18%) and communication with Russian-speaking people (59%) (second place in the percentage of respondents). 18% of students chose Russian as the reason for learning the Russian language based on recommendations or under the influence of advertising (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Diagram of the needs of Ivorian students in learning Russian

Teaching Russian as a foreign language to African students in the Republic of C?te d'Ivoire, located on the coast of West Africa, is associated with certain challenges and features that are associated with the mentality, culture and customs of West Africa and the education system established in this territory. In West African culture, great importance is attached to collectivism, family and mutual assistance. This is reflected in the students' approach to learning Russian: they are often more inclined to collective learning and communication than to individual work. Due to the large number of students, the problem arises of the huge occupancy of the auditorium (large auditoriums are called amphitheaters), which can accommodate from 70 to 1000 students. Chaibok-Tverefu Ildiko, a teacher of Russian in Ghana, working with large groups, notes the problem of choosing teaching tools: "First of all, you need to find a textbook that can be used in a crowded classroom. This is not easy, since the textbooks are written taking into account the small number of students and the fact that students regularly perform exercises together with the teacher. Moreover, due to the large number of students, it is important to find a textbook where the main grammar is explained briefly and in English. (There is no time for a long explanation, and, as practice shows, grammar is much easier to understand by examples)" ^{[20, p. 87]}.

The results of surveys conducted by Ivorian students in the Republic of Ivory Coast and students who came from this republic to the K. D. Ushinsky YAGPU to teach the Russian language showed that students like color textbooks with a lot of illustrations, there are quarcodes referring to audio materials. African students noted the presence of presentations as a mandatory requirement for the lesson on the part of the teacher. In our opinion, any modern textbook of a communicative orientation can be chosen as a textbook, supplemented at the discretion of the teacher with the necessary grammatical materials (when teaching Ivorians at the K.D. Ushinsky YAGPU, the educational complex "Russian Language Today" was chosen). Russian Russian, however, the tasks set by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation to the Center for Open Education required the intensification of the Russian language course in the Republic of C?te d'Ivoire (the course is designed for 144 hours, after the course; at the end of the eight-week course, students must successfully pass the A1 level test according to the Russian State System of certification levels of general proficiency in Russian as a foreign language), Russian Russian Language Course" by E. T. Asimov, M. N. Vyatyutnev, L. V. Farisenkova, Maminga R. Luzaya, which was intended for French-speaking students, determined the choice of the textbook "Initial course of the Russian language", authored by E. T. Asimov, M. N. Vyatyutnev, L. V. Farisenkova, Maminga R. Luzaya, intended for French-speaking students, since this textbook contains brief explanations of the features of Russian grammar, as well as the phonetic system of the Russian language in the native Ivorian language. In addition to the textbook for working in a French-speaking audience of Africans, a manual for developing the skills and abilities of everyday writing "My first lines in Russian. Part I. Introduction to written speech" by E. V. Buzalskaya, N. A. Lyubimova, as well as the manual "Russian grammar in exercises. Workbook with comments (for foreign students)" by I. Odintsovo, N. Malashenko, E. Barkhudarova. Russian Russian Grammar in tables and illustrations: a reference book for foreigners beginning to learn Russian, authored by G. G. Malyshev, was given to students for a visual and schematic presentation of grammatical material in the form of tables with illustrations. The listed textbooks are currently available for purchase and are quite common among RCT teachers. A prerequisite for conducting classes with Ivorians was the presence of presentations at each lesson: surveys conducted by us showed that the motivation to teach African students increases if the material turns out to be bright, visually attractive, orderly and contains illustrations that semanticize new lexical material, suggesting what is being discussed in the lesson. The textbook we chose is black and white, so the textbook materials were necessarily explained by teachers in presentations, accompanied by color pictures and illustrations.

The educational and methodological materials we have chosen allow us to provide a system-functional approach to language teaching and are aimed at the formation of Russian-speaking communicative competencies [see works: 7; 8; 9; 10; 11]. In the process of selecting text exercises, the principle of the socio-cultural orientation of the teaching content is taken into account, revealing the realities of Russian culture to students). Combining materials in the preparation and conduct of classes does not violate the systematics and logic of presenting new material, on the contrary, it contributes to the continuity of the phased repetition of communicatively significant topics. Due to the fact that the number of students reached three hundred students, the textbook "The initial course of the Russian language" was translated by us into an electronic format: We included textbook fragments in the presentation with the addition of illustrations and exercises from the manuals, which provided equal access to educational material for each student. Educational materials were sent to students in advance in messengers convenient for them. Thus, students sitting away from the blackboard with a projector (the number of students in the audience could reach 80-100 people) could follow the educational process through the presentation. In addition, all the materials provided to the students remained with them.

Russian Russian phonetics. Based on the experience of intensive work with Ivorians in Africa (8-week course), we noted that at the initial stage of training, namely, when studying the introductory phonetic course, Francophones experienced relatively little difficulty in mastering the Russian phonetic system, since a lot of words in Russian and French are pronounced almost the same. Therefore, the introductory phonetic course, based on the comparison of the phonetic systems of two languages, namely the gradual introduction of letters and sounds based on the native language of students, contributes to a fairly rapid mastery of the phonetic system of the Russian language, and also creates a favorable psychological climate and motivation for learning the language. Russian Russian Introductory Course, the textbook we chose, allowed us to take into account these features, since in it the introductory phonetic course is built on the principle of adjacency and is a short excursion, which does not affect the effectiveness of mastering phonetics, but on the contrary, accelerates the transition to mastering intonation constructions and basic grammar of the Russian language (gender, cases, conjugation of verbs). It is worth noting that the French spoken by students is not the academic French language that is taught in Russian universities: Ivorian French has specific features both in pronunciation and vocabulary (argot, dialects). Russian Russian Language Course was also dictated by a linguistic and cultural approach: the textbook pages contain texts not only with iconic realities of Russian culture, but also directly with information about African culture (languages in the Congo, Independence Day in African countries, African art, etc.). Given the fact that that the Russian language is not yet in demand and interest among Ivorians, the motivating factor for speaking at first is the desire to talk about your country, about its culture and achievements. From the very first lessons, students could ask questions and talk about themselves and their fellow students in the language they were learning. The manual for the development of everyday writing attracts students by visualizing educational material in the form of SMS messages and "freeze frame" tasks, where students are invited to focus on the real moment and describe their surroundings. For example, there is a lesson now, write what you see now / What do you have on the table right now? After completing the task, the teacher can collect answer cards, quote them and invite students to guess who wrote it from the description. This form of work develops not only writing skills, but also oral, which contributes to the consolidation of the studied lexical units and their application in solving communicative tasks. Thus, the implementation of the basic requirements for educational and didactic materials identified during surveys of Ivorian students - the use of an electronic format, modern, visually rich and easy to use - contributed to the creation of a positive attitude towards learning Russian.

The surveys also revealed the difficulties faced by Ivorians who started learning Russian. Thus, considering the difficulties and barriers in teaching Russian to African students, Bansimba Marcel notes: "Lexemes of a specific meaning (head, eye, hand, etc.) are simpler than lexemes with an abstract meaning (condition, development, well-being). All this, unfortunately, creates a myth among students and especially their parents about the difficulties of the Russian language. That is why, at the beginning of each school year, many Congolese force their children to choose not Russian, but another language as a second foreign language" ^{[21, p. 104]}. Russian Russian students In the course of the survey identified the following factors that prevent an increase in interest in the Russian language and culture in the Republic of Ivory Coast: insufficient number (almost complete absence) of educational grants, scholarships, which reduces the likelihood of students leaving for education in Russia; insufficient coverage of the Russian language in the media compared to Russian Russian is a language that is more widely spoken (English remains the leading language in terms of possible exchange for study abroad); Ivorians know little about Russian culture, and the Russian language, at first glance, seems difficult to understand and impossible to learn (the fact that Russians almost do not live in Ivory Coast means that the language is a barrier to communication and rapprochement between these two peoples); the absence of Russian cultural events or events in C?te d'Ivoire; the exclusion of the Russian language from the educational process in secondary school ("We have only English and a choice between German and Spanish. Russian Russian, however, if it had been studied since high school, it would have been taken into account and it would even be spoken in Ivory Coast"; "In my opinion, there is about one main factor, which is that few people are interested in the Russian language because they consider it difficult... Actually, it was the same with me until we started taking courses. There are a lot of prejudices around this language").

Thus, the Russian language is surrounded by myths in the Ivorians' view and is devoid of interest due to the lack of media coverage, the lack of opportunity to receive further education in the territory of the Russian Federation: the practice of obtaining grants for education in the Russian Federation has not been worked out. Students who chose a Russian language course as part of the activities of the Open Education Center noted that after completing the course they would like to continue their studies at a higher level: directly in Russia (84%), take a certification exam (80%), work and study in Russia (77%), learn the language for themselves and be able to watch movies and read in Russian (66%), obtain Russian citizenship (18%). Learning Russian in the audience we study is associated with practical interest, and, of course, can become a strong motivational incentive for Ivorian students when providing them with the opportunity to study, including in the Russian Federation, for professional growth.

Today, a small number of teachers and methodologists at round tables, seminars, conferences can share their experience of teaching RCT in an authentic African environment: as a rule, these are participants in the International Humanitarian Project "Russian Teacher Abroad", as well as the project "Center for Open Education in Russian". However, teachers working in Russia note the problematic points and features of teaching African students in the preparatory departments of Russian universities ^{[22; 23]}. The experience of K.D. Ushinsky YAGPU is unique: it is possible to compare the features of Ivorian education directly in the Ivory Coast’Ivorian and at our university, since 9 people came to the K. D. Ushinsky YAGPU to study Russian.

Researching the African audience (representatives of Ivory Coast), we found out that the organization of education for African students from Ivory Coast requires a special approach from teachers. It is important to take into account the mentality, cultural characteristics and level of training of students when developing a training program. It is also necessary to provide students with additional opportunities for practical use of the language and adapt teaching techniques to their needs, which can be the key to a successful outcome at the end of their studies.

The culture and customs of West Africa have an impact on the learning process. Religious holidays and local traditions can create certain "barriers" for students learning Russian. For example, some holidays can make it difficult to get to the university due to traffic closures and traffic jams, and on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays students go to church services, so they are systematically absent from classes. Africans are characterized by a serious attitude towards religion. When asking about what the student did yesterday, on the weekend, the teacher often receives the following answers: "I prayed to God," "I asked God," "I was in church" (from answers to questions in the audience). Russian Russian In everyday practice, students are not devoid of communicative activity: they do not avoid speaking Russian, on the contrary, they are happy to meet teachers before classes and speak Russian, they are ready to make reports in the language they are studying. Russian russians try to speak to the teacher in Russian, despite the language barriers associated with a short period of learning Russian, while doing additional scientific work, discussing speeches at a student conference.

Speaking about the methodological features of working in an African audience, M. A. Sokol and K. A. Lukyanova make an important remark that Africans maintain a fairly high pace of work and a fairly high level of complexity of language material ^{[23, p. 154]}. Indeed, it is quite difficult to master the initial course of the Russian language in 8 weeks, even for the most motivated student, therefore, the RCT teacher should include various types of activities in his work, look for interesting formats of classes.

Among the main features of Ivorian education that can be useful to RCT teachers, the following can be noted. The intensive course requires the teacher to include listening, speaking and writing in the learning process already in the first classes. Teachers showed an algorithm for writing letters on the blackboard so that from the first lesson, communicatively significant phrases were recorded in students' notebooks, as well as a part of the alphabet with transcription. When mastering the introductory phonetic course, much attention was paid to the teacher's speech apparatus and imitative activity. Among the problems in the field of phonetics in the Ivorian audience, difficulties in pronunciation [x] were noted (absent in their system), constant softening of the letter [l’] (in their native language it is always soft, Russian is characterized by the distinction between hard and soft consonant phonemes), some had problems with [s] (for example, pronounce [ti], but [good den’], problems with distinguishing [er], [’er]. Ivorians do not always distinguish a question from a statement. This is due to the fact that in literary French, questions are asked using the word order in a sentence (inversion), and in Russian – intonation, so intonation should be given special attention. There are difficulties in writing letters: e (z), I (N), h (y), m, p, n, y (h). During the course, one of the students' favorite exercises was the following: students dictated to the teacher working at the blackboard, writing words, pointed to the stressed syllable. This kind of activity contributed to the formation of graphic skills, the formation of visual and motor image of the word.

Russian Russian. Most of the requests identified by us as a result of the surveys were related to the request to teach students to speak Russian in everyday life, as well as to understand the lyrics of songs in Russian. As is known, one of the methods of intensive training according to the activation method developed by G. A. Kitaygorodskaya includes melodization ^{[24, p. 27]}. Considering that musicality, an excellent sense of rhythm, and artistry are characteristic of most African students, as well as analyzing positive feedback on musical and rhythmic warm-ups and exercises, we evaluated the effectiveness of rhythmization and melodization techniques of educational material, not only lexical, but also grammatical, in the course of working with Ivorian students.  One of the students' favorite listening exercises was the task "Seven Songs" – a playlist of seven songs united by a common vocabulary. Selective listening included the task of searching and counting certain lexical units in the listened text in Russian. Russian Russian songs and the interest shown in the assignment contributed, firstly, to an increase in self-esteem: students felt joy from successfully understanding authentic material, and secondly, increased motivation to learn the language and Russian music. For example, fragments of songs were offered to practice vocabulary on the topic of "Profession": "A million scarlet roses" (Alla Pugacheva), "Student" (Hands Up), "Accountant" (Combination), "Entrepreneur" (Ida Galich), "School teacher" (Denis Maidanov), "Mambo of football players" (Leonid Agutin), "Play, musician" (Maria Rasputina). Working out the vocabulary united by the theme "Time of day", we proposed a similar task, but students had to hear not only the form of the creative case of the noun (morning, afternoon, evening, night, but also the nominative/accusative (morning, afternoon, evening, night). The playlist consists of the following fragments of songs: "The best day" (Grigory Leps), "Thank you for the day, thank you for the night" (Mikhail Boyarsky), "Love Me, love Me" (Buckwheat), "Medlyak" (Mr. Credo), "Opium for no One" (Agatha Christie), "Gray Night" (Yuri Shatunov), "17 years old" (Chaif).

Special attention should be paid to the game form of the work called "Grammar battle". This type of activity promotes the development of speech, memory, and is also aimed at activating the skills of pronunciation and memorization of conjugations of Russian verbs. A grammatical battle is a competition between two speakers, which includes rhythmic pronouncing of verb conjugations, which is accompanied by a musical beat. First, the teachers conjugate the verbs to the musical beat, then the audience, then the willing students. After the introductory training stage, the teachers organize a battle: students receive both new and already studied verbs, their task is to accurately pronounce the entire paradigm of verb conjugation (including pronouns) under the beat. If a participant gets lost, makes a mistake, then he steps aside, and then tries his hand again. The student who is the first to leave the battle is applauded by fellow students. The audience closely follows the speaker, pronouncing the appropriate forms with him.

A separate comment is required on the use of native French as an intermediary language in classes in C?te d'Ivoire (to a lesser extent, the intermediary language was used in classes with Ivorians at the K. D. Ushinsky YAGPU). One of the main teaching methods was the translation method: it allowed to intensify learning at the initial stage, quickly offer information about Russian culture. "The native language can be used not only as a means of managing the educational process: to convey the discussion of problematic issues, organizational information, recommendations on the organization of the educational process, etc., but in the process itself, to better understand the educational situation, clarify a particular term of the assignment and instructions, which contributes to an adequate understanding of the educational material" ^{[25, p. 22]}. However, in order to reduce the intensity of French language use in the classroom, even in the first lesson, we introduced commands in Russian (read, write, speak, listen, answer, do), the question "are you ready?". The introduction of command verbs makes it easier to work when getting acquainted with new vocabulary, in particular at the stage of mastering the grammatical topic "Verb conjugation", since students have already mastered command verbs well.

When working with grammar, teachers used the method of submitting deliberately incorrect information. For example, when practicing grammar on the blackboard, there could be the following constructions: "this is a car – this is him; this is dad – this is her; the professor works at the university", etc. During this exercise, the students showed interest in the constructions and began to express their disagreement, arguing their opinion, which contributed to the active application of the acquired knowledge in practice.

A significant difficulty that teachers working in C?te d'Ivoire had to face was teaching Ivorian students the practice of doing homework (students who came to study in Russia adapted faster to the mandatory homework): it turned out that they did not do their homework ^[26]. Such presentations required teachers to pay special attention to the development of homework, search for interesting formats and materials. The practice of formulating questions to which students gave answers after the video, the participants of which were the teachers themselves, turned out to be successful. In response, students reacted more actively to creative homework (to shoot a story, draw, etc.) or assignments based on authentic material (songs, cartoons "Masha and the Bear", "Prostokvashino").

The distinctive features of Ivorian students, which allow them to master the Russian language quite intensively, are their ability to quickly "process" new information, read and search for material (lexical) before studying it with a teacher, lack of fear of speaking in front of an audience, openness to dialogue. The artistry of Ivorian students is manifested in the desire and desire to participate in the dialogues played out during the training: they often do not want to just read dialogues, like to go to the blackboard, and are happy to play the role of participants in the dialogue. This is evaluated positively when working with Ivorians at the K. D. Ushinsky YAGPU, but sometimes it becomes problematic in C?te d'Ivoire, since there can be up to 100 people in one audience and there is no way to ask everyone. In addition, the teacher must take into account the needs of Ivorians for mutual support: students applaud each other for correct answers, for speaking at the blackboard.

According to surveys conducted by Ivorian students, tasks related to game technologies became interesting techniques for them in learning, and teamwork was highly appreciated: combining words and pictures, "the fourth extra", "yes/no" (related to the verification of material, the search for false statements), the transformation of grammatical forms (word in to put the indirect case in the initial form, change the number, etc.), guessing the material using five hints (the task of the teams is to guess the word from the first hint; at the initial stage, the hints are given in their native language, as they learn the language, hints in Russian are included).

Conclusion

Russian Russian studies conducted among Ivorian students and the practice of teaching them Russian both in their native country and in Russia have shown that a learning system aimed at intensifying the process will be successful if it takes into account the characteristics of the African audience, is based on demonstrating the similarities and differences between Russian and African cultures, is based on on the inclusion of a large number of video and audio materials, including authentic ones, the use of melodization and rhythmization techniques of educational material, game techniques. As prospects for further research, we can describe the features of the Ivorian student learning system at other levels of learning Russian, the development of educational materials specially prepared for an African audience speaking French, the definition of new teaching formats that make the learning process exciting not only for students, but also for teachers.