Continuing Education Courses in the Organizational and Methodological Model for Teaching Russian in India

Marinina Yuliya Anatol'evna PhD in Philology Associate Professor; Department of Russian and Foreign Philology; Minin Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University (Minin University) 603095, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanova str., 1 umarinina@gmail.com Other publications by this author

This article was previously published in Russian in the journal Pedagogy and Education, available at this link: https://nbpublish.com/ppmag/contents_2024.html.

Introduction

At present, understanding the value potential of Russian culture, its spiritual and moral meanings, and the role of the Russian language as a link in intercultural dialogue is one of the most significant priorities in Russian education. The state program "Development of the Export Potential of the Russian Education System" (Passport of the priority project "Development of the Export Potential of the Russian Education System" as amended by Protocol No. 6 dated May 30, 2017), adopted for the period from 2019 to 2025, set the task of increasing the competitiveness of Russian education in the international educational services market. Russia is actively cooperating with Asian and African countries and is growing interested in learning Russian.

Against the background of these processes, the so-called "intellectual resource" plays an important role in the strategy of educational export. By an intellectual resource, economic researchers understand: "The totality of accumulated knowledge on developed technologies and scientific discoveries; the results of creative and intellectual work of people, as well as organizational knowledge inherent in each enterprise" ^{[1, p. 34]}. These are "human capital, intellectual property, information, innovations, business technologies, organizational (corporate) culture" ^{[1, p. 34]}. Russian language and Russian education opportunities of "intellectual resources" in the promotion of the Russian language and Russian education are expressed in the model of organizational and methodological support for teaching Russian as a foreign language (hereinafter referred to as RCT) in the cultural and linguistic space of countries where foreign speakers live.

This study presents the results of the work on implementing methodological support for teaching Russian as a foreign language in the Republic of India. It uses the organization of additional education courses for teachers of the Russian Academy of Sciences and students of schools and universities as an example.

The current situation in language education takes various forms. Short-term additional educational courses are becoming popular with traditional classical education at schools and universities, focusing on forming basic competencies among foreign speakers. These courses have local goals and are limited to developing or forming one of the key competencies, depending on students' needs. Students of these courses can be students of different levels of education and teachers of Russian studies ^[2].

On the Russian comprehension of the possibilities of methodological support for teaching the Russian language to non-Russian speakers, D. Yu. Guzhel draws attention to the two-component nature of this process, "Methodological assistance to foreign students and students in mastering Russian as a foreign language ... and to foreign teachers of the Russian Language in their professional development to improve the quality of pedagogical activity" ^{[3, pp. 495–496]}.

Russian is of interest in the Republic of India. According to data for 2022, Russian is taught at fifty universities in India at different levels (from short-term courses to vocational training), is studied in twenty schools, and the Russian Centers for Science and Culture have five departments across the country ^{[4, p. 15]}.

Russian has evolved as an academic subject in Indian schools over the past decade. The social dynamics in training specialists proficient in the Russian language continue to shift, as do the societal expectations regarding the level and breadth of students' communicative training. The Russian language has seen changes in schools due to the introduction of a new educational policy, where it is now offered alongside other foreign languages in secondary education ^{[5, p. 15]}. Furthermore, intensive training courses have gained popularity among entrepreneurs, tourists, and students intending to study in Russia. The current state of Russian-Indian cultural exchanges, especially in the areas of Russian studies, the study of RCT, and academic research collaborations, is undergoing a revival, as reflected in the "Joint Statement on the results of the twenty-first Russian-Indian Summit "Russia–India: Partnership for Peace, Progress and Prosperity’" dated December 6, 2021 ^[6].

The subject of the research is the courses of additional education as a key element of organizational and methodological support for teaching Russian as a foreign language in educational institutions of the Republic of India.

The scientific novelty of the research is determined by analyzing India's existing educational system in terms of teaching Russian as a foreign language at different levels of training. Russian language teaching is characterized by a systematic approach to forming the proposed programs of additional education courses as part of the scientific and methodological support model for Russian language teaching, as they are aimed at students with different proficiency levels in Russian as a foreign language and other professional needs.

When designing a model of organizational and methodological support for teaching Russian in the cultural and linguistic space of the Republic of India, the interests of the student and teaching audience identified as a result of the survey, as well as educational gaps that would partially allow additional education courses to be filled, which are an effective tool for professional training ^{[7, p.6]}, were taken into account.

Research methodology and the degree of elaboration of the problem

Comprehending the organizational and methodological support of the process of teaching Russian as a foreign language, researchers primarily talk about the export of Russian education to countries where potential university applicants live in the Russian Federation, with the aim of propaedeutic training of future international students entering Russian-language educational programs at Russian universities ^[8]. The methodology of organizing pre-university and advanced training courses became the basis for designing and expanding the range of additional education courses designed not only for potential applicants but also for students studying Russian at universities in the Republic of India, as well as Russian teachers.

The theoretical basis of the research consists of scientific works considering the concept of exporting Russian education, methodological support for the activities of an RCT teacher abroad, V. I. Skorobogatova ^[9], M. A. Tanina, V. V. Bondarenko, V. A. Yudina, O. N. Leskina ^[10], M. A. Egorova, V. V. Grib, A.V. Minbaleeva ^[11], E. M. Kanunnikova, I. S. Moga ^[12]. The research was also based on works devoted to the issues of teaching Russian as a foreign language, including in a distance format, by D. Yu. Guzheli ^[3], V. A. Maryanchik, L. V. Popova ^[13], K. B. Prigozhina, O. A. Muratova ^[14], T. Rostovskaya, V. Skorobogatova, V. Kholina ^[15], I. Potapova ^[16].

The research methods are the analysis of pedagogical ^{[7; 11; 12]} and methodological literature on the problem of methodological support of teaching the Russian language^{[3; 4; 8; 15]}, Russian as a foreign language, and further design of additional education courses based on the study of the needs of the target audience of students, graduate students, and teachers ^[2]; modeling of methodological support for the process of teaching Russian as a foreign language, reflecting the experience of Russian scientists in terms of education export strategies ^{[8; 10; 15; 16]}, in the field of educational and methodological support of the Russian language teaching process in foreign schools, in the field of modern approaches in the teaching methodology of Russian language teaching ^{[9; 13; 20]}.

The development of additional education course programs was preceded by a survey of teachers and students of Indian universities to identify their interests and determine the topics of intensive courses.

The survey was conducted in the summer of 2023 and 2024. Eight hundred ninety-two people from the University of Delhi (New Delhi), the University of New Delhi took part in the survey. Jawaharlal Nehru (New Delhi), Chaudhary Charan Singh University (Meerut). Russian was surveyed online using a Google form and included questions about personal data (gender, age, place of study/work, status [student/graduate student/teacher], level of proficiency in Russian), as well as motivation to learn Russian ("Why do you want to learn Russian?") and about choosing a course of additional education for the development of Russian language skills from several suggested courses (a total of 13 courses of different orientation were offered). In this study, we will focus more on data analysis related to the choice of courses.

Diagram 1. Preferences of students of additional education courses in the Russian language

Russian language additional education courses and the percentage of interest in Russian language courses are shown in the table below:

Russian language education Table 1. Percentage of interest in additional education courses in Russian and Russian language teaching

A survey of students and teachers showed that Russian language courses related to the formation of skills in business communication ("Business Russian language") have become the most in-demand. This interest is due to the involvement of students of different training profiles considering options for continuing their studies or working in Russia or with native Russian speakers in India. Thus, in this case, Russian remains the language of international communication and a communication channel for citizens of different countries.

The course "Digital and Audiovisual Technologies in Teaching RCT" was also highly demanded by students. This interest is due to the increasing attention to modern digital technologies in teaching. Digital tools, including chatbots, platforms for creating video and audio content, sites for remote collaboration, visualization tools, virtual maps, museums, etc., make learning a foreign language interesting and effective.

Russian language courses focused on students of philology turned out to be the least in demand: "A Journey through Russia with Russian Writers," "Russian Mentality in Language and Speech," "Communicative Functions of Russian Grammar," "Everything secret becomes clear" (a Russian language metaphor), which was due to the contingent of respondents, among whom the percentage of professional The percentage of Russian philologists was 35%.

The results of the study

Russian Language Open Education and Russian Language Training Center of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as the Central Educational Institution), opened by Nizhny Novgorod State Pedagogical University named after Kozma Minin, has been operating at Chaidhari Charan Singh University (Meerut, Republic of India) since September 2023. In 2024, work based on the Center for Open Education will be carried out with the assistance of the Foundation for the Support of the Humanities’ "My Story."

Teachers of Mininsky University conducted courses in Russian philology and methodological, educational, and educational events at the sites of various universities and schools.

The target audience of the courses are teachers and students of universities of the Republic of India: Chaudhary Charan Singh University (Meerut), Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi), Delhi University (Delhi), Amity University (Harayana), Maharaj Sayajirao Baroda University (Vadodara), Jamia Milia Islamia University (Delhi New Delhi), Savitribai Phule Pune University (Pune), Bhagat Phul Singh Women's University (Sonipad), Pimpri University (Pimpri Chinchwad), students of S. B. Patil School (Pimpri Chinchwad), Pimpri Chinchwad School. Herman Gmeiner (G. Bhimtal) and others.

More than 950 people have been trained in thirteen different courses in just two years of work.

The additional education courses implemented by the Central Educational Institution are addressed to students at different levels of professional training and proficiency in Russian.

The most popular courses for senior students who speak Russian at the B1–B2 level, undergraduates (B2), postgraduates (C1), and teachers are courses on the teaching methodology of RCT, reflecting current trends in language education: a communicative approach to teaching different types of speech activity, interactivity, digitalization. This group of students is focused on professional pedagogical activities related to teaching RCT at varying levels of education. A serious problem for the introduction of Russian as a second foreign language in schools in the Republic of India is the lack of Russian specialists who possess the skills of teaching methods to schoolchildren. In pedagogical universities and colleges, there are no profiles related to the study of foreign languages, including Russian languages; students receive basic linguistic education at classical universities, which is why courses of additional methodological education allow them to solve the problem of training personnel for schools and universities.

The methodological block consisted of the courses "Digital and audiovisual technologies in Teaching RCT," "Philological Analysis of Text in Teaching RCT," and "Features of teaching different types of Reading in RCT Classes." As a result of studying the courses, students became acquainted with digital educational platforms and tools in teaching RCT, learned how to design their own diagnostic and visual materials in electronic services, and placed them on digital platforms. Working with text, whether printed or audiovisual, is the basis of RCT classes. Therefore, it is especially important to learn how to work with texts, which is primarily associated with developing reading and listening skills. Classes on philological analysis of the text are focused on studying reading and acquaintance with the texts of modern Russian literature, mass literature, and modern journalism. The object of the analysis is unadapted authentic texts. Mastering these courses contributes to learning the methodology of working with text as didactic material for RCT classes: the formation of the ability to extract linguistic and cultural information from the text, improving the skills of interpreting texts, designing a system of tasks for literary texts corresponding to different types of reading.

As a result, these courses contribute to the formation of students' professional competence in teaching RCT, which is especially important for the modern school education system in India—the possibility of introducing the study of Russian as a second foreign language into the school curriculum.

Russian language courses related to the formation of metaphorical competence in foreign speakers, describing the processes taking place in modern Russian, philological analysis of the text, and the study of the contemporary literary process in Russia also aroused interest among students, undergraduates, and postgraduates at an advanced level of proficiency in Russian. Translators, including fiction writers, expressed particular interest in this area.

The function of these courses in the system of additional education is to form professional competencies related to linguistics and literary studies, as well as translation from Russian into Hindi or English and vice versa. They contribute to creating a "secondary linguistic personality": the language picture of the world of native speakers is mastered. Russian Metaphor The course "Everything secret becomes clear" (Russian language metaphor)" is aimed at the formation and development of skills in working with Russian casual and occasional metaphors. Analyzing the mental connections between the meanings of the original and metaphorical images contributes to a better translation of artistic and journalistic texts and the formation and development of metaphorical competence. Russian metaphor Given that "different languages have different metaphorical systems" ^{[17, p. 158]}, it can be assumed that the development of this course will contribute not only to the expansion of the vocabulary of foreign speakers and the understanding of the Russian language metaphor but also bring closer to the understanding of the Russian mentality as a whole.

Russian language courses "Semantics and Pragmatics of Words in Speech" and "Communicative Functions of Russian Grammar" have been developed for undergraduates, graduate students, and teachers of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the purpose of which is to introduce foreign speakers to the variation of the meanings of Russian words in the context, with the relations of synonymy, antonymy, homonymy in modern Russian that are significant for understanding the meaning of utterance. Essential objectives of the courses are to familiarize students with the pragmatics (i.e., with the functions necessary for the achievement of the speaker's communicative goal) of the word-formation, lexical, and syntactic units of the Russian language; to improve the skills of using and interpreting grammatical forms, morphological and syntactic, in texts of different styles, including colloquial and artistic.

For school and first-year students who are initially mastering Russian as a foreign language, it is important to get acquainted with Russia's history, culture, and traditions. A special linguistic and cultural studies course, "Such a Different Russia," was designed for this group of students. Russians are so different. The course is designed to form students' general ideas about Russia: about the territory and landscape, about nature and climatic features, about the culture and way of life of the Russian people, about Russian holidays. Russian cultural concepts like "happiness," "longing," "family," "home," etc., images of men and women in proverbs, sayings, language, and literature were presented in the course "Secrets of the Russian Soul." The main objective of this course is to motivate students to study the Russian language and develop socio-cultural, linguistic, and cultural competencies.

Russian Language courses offered to a broad audience, including those foreign citizens who are going to continue their education in Russia or are connected with the Russian Federation by business contacts, are "Business Russian Language" and "Politeness Strategies in Russian-speaking Culture," "Traveling through Russia with Russian writers." Their study involves familiarity with the Russian-speaking culture of business communication, Russian speech etiquette, and the geography of Russia. At Russian speech etiquette classes, organized as practical training sessions, students had the opportunity not only to get acquainted with the theoretical foundations and rules of Russian speech etiquette but also to work out communication skills, oral and written speech in Russian in an official business style, learned how to write some documents (resume, business letter, statement).

Russian literature and culture reflect the image of Russia in the course "Traveling through Russia with Russian Writers." During the course, the students became acquainted with Moscow and the cities of the Golden Ring, St. Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod and visited virtual tours of these cities. The course materials included animated films from the cycles "Multi-Russia" (about Yaroslavl, Tambov, Smolensk, Kazan, etc.), "Bodo Borodo" (about Veliky Novgorod and Jaipur), got acquainted with the description of cities in the texts of N. S. Leskov, I. S. Aksakov, M. M. Prishvin and other writers.

Russian Metaphor: The course "Everything secret becomes clear" (Russian language metaphor)" is aimed at the formation and development of skills in working with Russian casual and occasional metaphors. Analyzing the mental connections between the meanings of the original and metaphorical images contributes to a better translation of artistic and journalistic texts and the formation and development of metaphorical competence. Russian metaphor Given that "different languages have different metaphorical systems" ^{[17, p. 158]}, it can be assumed that the development of this course will contribute not only to the expansion of the vocabulary of foreign speakers and understanding of the Russian language metaphor but also bring closer to understanding the Russian mentality as a whole.

Russian Language courses "Semantics and Pragmatics of Words in Speech" and "Communicative Functions of Russian Grammar" have been developed for undergraduates, graduate students, and teachers of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the purpose of which is to introduce foreign speakers to the variation of the meanings of Russian words in context, with relations of synonymy, antonymy, homonymy in modern Russian that are significant for understanding the meaning of utterance. Important objectives of the courses are to familiarize students with the pragmatics (i.e., with the functions necessary for the successful achievement of the speaker's communicative goal) of the word formation, lexical and syntactic units of the Russian language; to improve the skills of using and interpreting grammatical forms, morphological and syntactic, in texts of different styles, including colloquial and artistic.

The methodological block consisted of the courses "Digital and audiovisual technologies in Teaching RCT," "Philological text analysis in Teaching RCT," and "Features of teaching different types of Reading in RCT Classes." As a result of studying the courses, students got acquainted with digital educational platforms and tools in teaching RCT, learned how to design their own diagnostic and visual materials in electronic services, and placed them on digital platforms. Working with text, whether printed or audiovisual, is the basis of RCT classes. Therefore, it is especially important to learn how to work with texts, which is primarily associated with developing reading and listening skills. Classes on philological analysis of the text are focused on studying reading and acquaintance with the texts of modern Russian literature, mass literature, and modern journalism. The object of the analysis is unadapted authentic texts. Mastering these courses contributes to learning the methodology of working with text as didactic material for RCT classes: the formation of the ability to extract linguistic and cultural information from the text, improving the skills of interpreting texts, designing a system of tasks for literary texts corresponding to different types of reading.

Russian courses offered for study at the Center for Open Education to a wide audience and the professional community of the Republic of India are aimed at demonstrating the possibilities of teaching disciplines in Russian, as well as getting acquainted with the current problems of modern Russian studies: the functioning of the contemporary Russian language, its history, modern literary process; philological analysis of the text; actual problems of teaching Russian as a foreign language in the aspect of digitalization of educational practices, etc. Russian remains the language of interethnic communication ^[20]. Due to the New Educational Policy of India, which includes national and foreign languages in the education system along with English ^{[18, 19]}, there is a growing interest in learning Russian both in the form of long-term educational programs and short-term courses in educational institutions of the country.

The results of the testing of the developed programs of additional education courses were, on the one hand, the improvement of the linguistic, cultural, communicative, and methodological competencies of foreign speakers, as evidenced by the final certification for each of the courses; on the other hand, confirmation of the effectiveness of the local form of methodological support for teaching a foreign language, including Russian, focused on a personal approach, meeting the needs of a wide range of foreign language listeners.

Conclusions

Russian language courses in the Republic of India played a unique role in designing the model of organizational and methodological support for Russian language teaching, which can solve several tasks: to increase the level of professional competence of teachers of Russian, improve the language and speech competencies of students and undergraduates, motivate school students and students to study the Russian language and Russian culture, to form business communication skills., to introduce the history, culture, and literature of Russia. The course system, aimed at students who speak different levels of Russian and offered to Indian school students, students, undergraduates, and teachers, was the export of Russian education to the Republic of India—the introduction of the experience of teachers of Mininsky University (Nizhny Novgorod) with international students and Russian teachers. The developed textbooks, course programs, control, and measuring materials, considering the national specifics of foreign languages, contributed to the updating and enrichment of the methodological base of Indian Russian teachers.

The testing of the courses has demonstrated the effectiveness of including this form in the general model of organizational and methodological support for teaching Russian as a foreign language: firstly, short-term courses of additional education allow solving specific tasks in connection with the needs of the audience of listeners; secondly, if necessary, courses can be adapted into a distance format; thirdly, courses, oriented towards a communicative approach in teaching RCT, modern requirements design them for the methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language: classes are conducted using interactive and digital technologies.

The feedback questionnaire offered to the students after the courses showed high satisfaction with the classes. Russian students noted that it was "Good and interesting for them to study!" they learned a lot about Russia and Russian culture, and most of the respondents would like to continue studying the Russian language and culture.

The research materials allow us to conclude that additional education courses on the methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language are in demand and addressed to school teachers. Developing programs that take into account regional specifics is a promising area of work in the field of Russian studies in India.