LANGUAGE AS A MEANS OF INTER-ETHNIC INTERACTION IN EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT OF AN INTERNATIONALLY ORIENTED UNIVERSITY

The research of interethnic interaction in the educational environment is especially relevant given the global academic mobility processes. The universities all over the world enroll international applicants - representatives of different nationalities and ethnic groups, and this tendency is growing. In view of the above, the fundamental problem of the efficient collaboration of the representatives of different nationalities in global universities is highly pertinent.The article focuses on the analysis of the specificity of interethnic relations in the educational environment of an internationally oriented university, such as RUDN University (Peoples' Friendship University of Russia). RUDN University implements educational programs in the Russian language for the students from more than 150 countries.The given paper presents the results of the international students' interaction research. The main outcome of the study is the identification of the levels of a person's interaction in the educational environment of an internationally oriented university. The descriptive, analytical and pedagogical observation methods, i.e. an analysis of the survey results and discussions with students, have been used. The survey was conducted among RUDN University students - representatives of different ethnic groups; its results make it possible to define the main components of the effective interethnic interaction model. This model if realized through learning Russian as a foreign language in the educational environment of the international university. The focus is made on the role of the Russian language in the efficient functioning of this model.