Department of Russian Language

The Department of Russian Language for Foreign Students was established in 1946, when the first foreign students began to study in the Institute. The students came from Mongolia.

The professors of the Department teach students of all faculties. On the 3-th of December, 1999 the Department became a member of the Russian Association of Teachers of Russian, which associates leading Russian specialists in the field of the Russian language and literature, and also promotes business and scientific cooperation with professors from other countries.

The main goal of the Department is teaching foreign students in Russian. Professors use modern methods of teaching foreign languages, search for the new concepts of teaching.
The main directions of the Department’s are activity education and research work.

Education: teaching of the Russian language as a foreign language (for the students from foreign countries) and as a non-native language (for students from the Commonwealth of Independent States).

Levels of teaching Russian as a Foreign Language:

• first level — the initial stage of studying;
• second level — bachelors (Russian as a basic, second or third foreign language);
• third level — masters (Russian as a basic, second or third foreign language);
• fourth level — Ph. D. student (Russian as a basic foreign language).

In recent year the department has created specific programs for the foreign probationers, who come from Europe, Asia and America to study the Russian language for one or two terms.

The Head of the Department: Nina D. Afanasieva, Ph. D. in Pedagogy

Department Staff:

There are 33 teachers (15 associate professors, PhDs; 14 senior teachers and 4 teachers). The main field of the professors’ scholastic interest is methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language (teaching the language of profession, teaching in colleges and universities, using the technological equipment of teaching, etc).

The professors of the Department created the textbooks of the Russian language for foreign students, which are used in other universities of Russia and abroad.

Since 1997 professors conduct a scientific conference «Theory and practice of teaching Russian as a foreign language in institutes», since 2009 — International Conference through the program «The Russian Language in the XXI Century». A lot of professors from well-known universities of Russia and other countries take part in the conference.

The Professors of the department participate in scientific symposiums, conferences. Publication of scientific articles is one of the important directions of the department activity.