Sociocultural Component of the Content of Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language

by: The Language123 Staff

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Recently there have been appreciable transformations to strategy and the contents of teaching foreign languages. In the greater measure it results in understanding of a role of a language as means of communication, and, hence, basic stress in language education is made on a problem how adequately to use a foreign language in intercultural communication. The idea of "dialogue between cultures” as comparison, interaction and understanding of other cultural values has been developing with occurrence of new opportunities and prospects of cooperation with overseas countries.
In this connection sociocultural aspect became priority in teaching foreign languages, including Russian as foreign. It is known that a language is one of ways of translation of culture and one of functions of a language is accumulating and keeping culture of a nation, transfer it to other generations. It is also necessary to emphasize that a feedback exists between a culture and a language: the language does not only keeps the culture of the nation but also actively influences upon its speaker, forming and imposing the unique vision of the world inherent in the given language and the culture of the human relations reflected and kept by the language.
Sociocultural approach is one of culture study approaches in teaching a foreign language and is guided with training to intercultural communication in a context of dominants of the civil world and consent. Thus, social and pedagogical orientation to teaching a foreign language in spirit of the world, in a context of dialogue between cultures, tolerant attitude and overcoming of intolerance in a society gets priority position. Prominent feature of sociocultural competence is its orientation to training norms of a dialogue in conditions of intercultural communication for which the most complicated interaction of civilized, national and socially strategic components is especially actual.
Skill to effectively use sociocultural language knowledge in communication means that a person speaking a foreign language has sociocultural competence. Formation of sociocultural competence which is understood as a complex of knowledge of values, beliefs, behavioural samples, customs, traditions, language, the achievements of the culture peculiar to a certain society occurs during familiarizing a person with the culture and national traditions of the country’s language learned and training.
The model of sociocultural competence formation can be shown as the following:
1.on a linguistic level: teaching a foreign language (lingual and culture study aspect in methods of teaching Russian as foreign); sociolinguistics (use of language in various social situations);
2. on an information level: data on culture (music, literature, folklore, artefacts; etiquette; clothing; traditions of national cuisine; language of nonverbal communication; sounds expressing an emotion (surprise, indignation, pleasure, etc.); traditions and customs; education system, social institutions; country study (geographical location, climate, political and economic systems, etc.).
Sociocultural competence defines in many respects success of communication with people of another language speaking culture, allowing to feel confident and comfortable in another environment. Ignorance of questions connected with nonverbal means of communications, etiquette and others is fraught with serious consequences up to loss of partners in business relations. Therefore sociocultural competence is capable to a certain degree to help future experts with overcoming cultural barriers in communication.
As G. Neuner's research showed, formation of speaking another language sociocultural competence of students is not isolated process. It is inextricably related to development of general sociocultural competence of students generated either concerning the native culture or all the world. Thus, the basic pedagogical task of studying another language speaking world at lessons is necessary to count development of basic civil qualities of a person as well as balanced personal and public self-estimation.
The majority of students, coming to train in Russian higher educational institutions, from countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa, speak about their interest and necessity to successfully master Russian. Foreign students try to achieve results in their studies, but they say Russian is incredibly difficult to study.
The Russian language became “the weapon of life” to them, and good knowledge of it was and will be one of the main objectives of training in Russia. In their opinion, due to knowledge of the language they may communicate and exchange opinion with each other, learn distinctions in cultures and find adherents or, on the contrary, compromise. “Russian allows to understand and love Russia, Russian people, both complex and inconsistent Russian culture and history”. Students consider Russian as one of the perspective international languages and rich languages of the world.
Besides, students would like to travel more over Russia. Certainly in Moscow they have already visited the Red Square and like to walk along streets and in parks of the city with their friends. Some of them take interest in ancient buildings and highly estimate monuments of the architecture. Many of them have been to Saint-Petersburg, Tula, Smolensk and other ancient Russian cities.
It is interesting that students aspire to get acquainted with Russian cultural heritage, the subject of pride of Russia, not only on books and stories, but also with their own eyes. In general, they think Russian capital is a very beautiful city. The beauty of Russian nature is also appreciated by them. Among the students living in Moscow more than 3 years, there are many who wish to go to Sochi, a Russian resort city at the Black Sea coast: probably severe winters and a long period of interseason demand indemnification for all people.
The received facts and opinions of the students convince importance of teaching Russian as foreign on a high level, maintenance of students’ interest in communication with Russian students and people, expansion of their knowledge of Russian culture and the usual rules and norms of behaviour in Russian society. Consideration and discussion the questions revealing features of Russian national character, Russian traditions and a way of life developed for centuries might help in this matter in classes. Obviously, it is necessary to continue to work on appropriate learning and methodical books further.
Thus, process of sociocultural competence formation may be carried out more effectively on presence of some psychological and pedagogical factors. So, for instance, a rather important role objectively belongs to a teacher's personality who should have such qualities as impartiality, tolerance, ability to understand students' inwardness, to empathize them, skill to create comfortable atmosphere at Russian lessons, a high level of one's own sociocultural competence in communicating with people of different cultures. Among subjective factors it is possible to determine integration motivation, qualities of students having a feeling of newness, susceptibility to new ideas, understanding of an interlocutor’s mentality, ability to empathize him or her, tolerance to dissimilarity and another's opinion, positive attitude to another language speaking culture and its “carriers” (speakers).
Studying a foreign language and culture is a substantially complex process. Therefore connection of cogitative operations during comparison, interpretation, generalization, discussion and others similar discoursive forms of transfer of Russian culture essence is required at Russian lessons. On sociocultural approach it is important to pay attention to development of such students' skills as skill adequately to transfer sense; to leave situations of "failure" in information perception or transfer; to use a way and means of self-education. It is necessary for a teacher to let a student see in a language not only lists of words and rules of their connection in speech, but also a speaker of the culture.
The idea on necessity to impart communicating people as experience of behaviour and thinking in other culture as experience of perception sociocultural environment new to them has been emphasized in publications last years. Education of communicators' empathetic abilities becomes actual during acculturation. Differently from country study motivation based upon interest in the country culture of the language learned and respect for its “carriers”, empathy receives wider interpretation. It is connected with experience of emotionally estimating attitude to lingual and cultural interaction between people of various national and cultural communities. Empathetic abilities formed means readiness of an individual for perception of other views, skill to correlate one's own and another's, allowing to avoid failures in a dialogue. Thus, empathy receives new sounding in the context of "dialogue between cultures” as an integral quality of a language person.
In spite of the fact that study of languages and cultures is theoretically proved by Russian leading methodologists (I.Bim, E.Vereshchagin, V.Kostomarov, B.Lapidus, R.Minjar-Beloruchev, JU.Prokhorov), attempts to present sociocultural component in contents of teaching was reduced mainly to speech formulas and national specificity of materials shown or to isolated element of the contents of teaching that contradicts integrative essence of sociocultural component itself. As a language is social and culture is the only source from which the contents of education may be gathered, sociocultural component should penetrate the contents of teaching a foreign language and, being in all its components, to provide their indissoluble connection.
The use of a language as a part of another language speaking culture allows to successfully combine elements of country study with a language phenomena which act both as means of communication and a way of acquaintance of students with the new validity. Thus, a primary target is studying language units most brightly reflecting features of culture of people who are native speakers and the environment of their existence.
The base for this purpose may become lingual and country study, strongly included in practice of teaching Russian as foreign, due to E.Vereshchagin and V.Kostomarov's research. The output on a level of possible expansion of country study material logically and effectively presumes to solve problems in strengthening sociocultural orientations of another language speaking education on the whole, expansion of background knowledge, modernization of lexical base and naturally to strengthening of motivation aspect of teaching.
Practice of teaching Russian as foreign shows that students concern to the history, culture, art, customs, traditions, a way of people's daily life, etc. with constant interest. It is necessary to select carefully a material as there is a problem of training of overseas students to cultural, professional and personal contacts with Russian people having another social traditions, a social system and language culture. So, coordination of the contents of teaching and ways of its presentation along with cognitive needs and interests of students counteracts formation of their negative attitude.
Optimum selected material strengthens all motivation components: needs, interests, emotions, motives themselves. Formation of a steady level of study motivation obliges a teacher to select appropriate teaching materials which would represent cognitive, communicative, professional values carrying creative character, would stimulate cogitative activity of students. The use of culturological materials in teaching and educational process provides conditions motivating educational process and promotes deepening and expansion of students' cognitive activity as well.
Within the framework of the intercultural sociocultural education concept it is necessary to approach to problems of selection of educational themes not only from the point of view of presentation of settling and typical information, but also considering availability, clearness and positive emotional attitude of students to the given problem, his or her desire to discuss it. It is required differentually or even individually to choose a question, a theme if it is obviously possible. Discussion of such problems as specific features of perception of another language speaking validity by a student, his or her image of its idea, language experience in situations of perception and interaction, i.e. metacommunication processes, is one of distinctive features of intercultural language education.
The question of formation and perfection of sociocultural competence does not cause doubts, but it is still in a condition of search of priority steps in this direction in methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language.

September 23, 2005 - Comments:1

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1. What you say is interesting, particularly your stress on non-verbal communication. Clearly a language is not just a system of linguistic rules, it embodies a whole way of looking at life. However the standard of English in this text is not good, and there are several mistakes, eg 'to approach to problems' instead of 'to approach problems', and 'lingual communication' instead of 'linguistic communication'. In future you should try to get your text checked by a native speaker of english, as some of it does not make sense.

   Posted By :  Karen Vincent-jones - November 02, 2005

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