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УДК 81
PECULIARITIES OF LEARNING RUSSIAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE BY PERSIAN-SPEAKING STUDENTS
xMirgalimova L.M., graduate student 2Nasire Ahmad Nadeem, student
xKazan (Volga region) Federal University, Kazan, Russia
lilya_mirg1991@mail. ru 2Kazan Law Institute, Kazan, Russia
nadeem. nasire 123@gmail. com
The work deals with questions of Russian as a foreign language learning. Particularly, it enumerates most difficult issues in learning Russian according to the viewpoints of Persian speaking learners. The methods of learning which are mainly implied by those who perform well and vice versa are analyzed.
Keywords: foreign language, styles of learning, reproductive and productive methods of learning.
Learning a new language has always been a challenge for any student, but there are always some ways to make it easy. In this article we will consider some ways of learning the Russian language more easily. As we all know Russian is one the most difficult languages in the world because of its hard grammar. First of all we should clarify what a foreign language is. According to the sociolinguistic dictionary, a foreign language is a language native speakers of which are not aboriginal [1] Besides, it is worth mentioning that any language might be foreign for a language learner if it is not one of the official languages of the country he or she lives in.
Each of the learners according to his or her character, temperament, physical or mental abilities or preferences chooses this or that style of learning, among which are:
- Visual: these people prefer to use pictures, images, diagrams, colors, and mind maps.
- Physical: these are the "learn by doing" people that use their body to assist in their learning. Drawing diagrams, using physical objects or role playing are all strategies of the Physical learner.
- Aural: people who prefer using sound (obviously), rhythms, music, recordings, clever rhymes, and so on.
- Verbal: the verbal learner is someone who prefers using words, both in speech and in writing to assist in their learning. They make the most of word based techniques, scripting, and reading content aloud.
- Logical: the people who prefer using logic, reasoning, and "systems" to explain or understand concepts. They aim to understand the reasons behind the learning, and have a good ability to understand the bigger picture.
- Social: these people are the ones who enjoy learning in groups or with other people, and aim to work with others as much as possible.
- Solitary: the solitary learner prefers to learn alone and through self-study [3].
The survey was held among 28 native Persian speaking students aged 19-30.
Each of the examinees speaks two or more foreign languages among which are Hindi, Urdu, Dari, Pashto, Turkish, Arabic, English, and each of them is learning Russian as a second language at the moment. During the survey the bilingual examinees were asked to estimate their knowledge of languages, outline the most difficult issues for them in the process of language learning. We should state that it is a myth that for bilinguals learning a new language is easy, as among the
examinees were both those who perform well and those who have problems with learning a new language.
"Language learning strategies, being specific actions, behaviors, tactics, or techniques, facilitate the learning of the target language by the language learner. All language learners, needless to say, use language learning strategies in the learning process. Since the factors like age, gender, personality, motivation, self-concept, life-experience, learning style, excitement, anxiety, etc. affect the way in which language learners learn the target language, it is not reasonable to support the idea that all language learners use the same good language learning strategies or should be trained in using and developing the same strategies to become successful learners" states M. Hismangolu in the conclusion of his work [4]. Even if we cannot support language learner to use same strategies we may find out which of these strategies are more effective to help foreign language learners.
The examinees were advised to name three most difficult issues in learning the Russian language, which let us to maintain following results:
Table 1
Issues causing problems while learning a foreign language Number of people Percentage
Grammar: 27 96,4%
cases 21 75%
conjugation, forming of participles, gender, 3 5 2 10,7% 17,9% 7,1%
tenses 1 3,6%
Writing 4 14,8%
Understanding 2 7,1%
Translating 1 3,6%
Memorizing: new words 3 10,7%
exceptions 1 3,6%
Pronunciation 3 10,7%
As you can observe the most troublesome issue for a language learner is grammar, only one student out of 28 copes with grammatical issues, for others remembering about grammar rules while speaking, writing, or even reading causes difficulties.
The students were subdivided into two groups according to their teacher's observation and scores. Each of the testis gave advice for language learning beginners, following results were further subdivided into advice given by well-performer's, by those having difficulties in learning Russian.
Table 2
Advice given by successful language learners Advice given by language learners having difficulties
1. To find a partner to speak to or to talk to oneself 2. Not to be afraid to make mistakes 3. Not to concentrate upon grammar 4. Observe other people speaking and imitate pronunciation 5. To note down new words or phrases even if you do not know how to spell them 6. To develop thinking to try to write essay if there is nobody to speak to 7. To watch movies with subtitles, and to listen to the radio 8. To use words you memorize 9. To use idioms 1. To memorize words 2. To memorize grammar rules 3. To listen to music and watch TV 4. To read books, newspapers and magazines 5. To study hard 6. To write a lot 7. To make exercises 8. To repeat everything 9. To read dictionaries
10. To read newspapers and magazines
11. To write dictations
12. To make up questions to the texts you read
13. To believe in oneself
14. To memorize useful phrases first when you
start learning a language
15. Not to try to be perfect
According to psychologists there are two methods of learning: productive and reproductive. Reproductive method involves perception of new knowledge and its reproduction without any change or with a little change, while productive method implies creativity as a student finds out or makes out subjectively new knowledge as a result of his or her creativity [2]. These definitions were a ground for further subdivision of methods offered by the examinees.
Further analysis let us conclude that those who have difficulties in learning Russian, mostly (in 78% of cases) choose reproductive methods of learning, while well-performers advice to fulfill exercises which are mostly productive and imply creative thinking. Well performers do not always stick to just one style, as we may trace from the results obtained, they tend to combine social, verbal, physical, aural, visual, and logical styles, which makes learning process effective.
Our research data mainly coincides with the results obtained by L.L.C. Wong and D. Nunan as long as their experiment of 2011 states that "the domiant style for more effective learning is communicative" (making 50% of learners) [5, p. 151]. Communicative way of learning is one of the productive ways, because communication always presupposes creating your own messages and application of cognitive skills to decode the message got.
The results obtained in this article might be used for further research or as a didactic data for Russian as a foreign language teachers or learners.
Литература
1. Словарь социолингвистических терминов. М.: Российская академия наук. Институт языкознания. Российская академия лингвистических наук. Ответственный редактор: доктор филологических наук В.Ю. Михальченко. 2006. [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://sociolinguistics.academic.ru/217/
2. Умарова А. Классификация методов обучения по способам деятельности учащихся. [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://gjt.proffi95.ru/blogs/blog-az-umarovoi/klasifikacija-metodov-obuchenija-po-sposobam-dejatelnosti-uchaschihsja.html
3. Ferriman J. 7 language learning styles/ Collaboration Blog. [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://www.learndash.com/7-major-learning-styles-which-one-is-you/
4. Hismangolu M. Language Learning Strategies in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Hismanoglu-Strategies.html
5. Wong L.L.C., Nunan D. The learning styles and strategies of effective language learners. Elsevier, 2011. [Электронный ресурс]. URL: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/system
ОСОБЕННОСТИ ИЗУЧЕНИЯ РУССКОГО ЯЗЫКА ПЕРСОГОВОРЯЩИМИ
СТУДЕНТАМИ Миргалимова Л.М., Насире Ахмад Надим
Работа посвящена изучению вопроса изучения русского языка как иностранного. В частности, статья представляет собой анализ трудностей изучения русского как иностранного (на базе опроса и тестирования, проведённого среди студентов). Особое внимание уделяется методам обучения, применяемым успевающими студентами и студентами, имеющим трудности с изучением языка. Ключевые слова: иностранный язык, стили обучения, продуктивный и репродуктивный методы обучения.
Дата поступления 22.03.2017.
