Russian as a foreign language interview test for Russian Federation citizenship applicants: Structure and content

The introduction of a simplified procedure for obtaining citizenship by persons who are native Russian speakers became a promising innovation in the migration policy of the Russian Federation. The status of native Russian speaker is granted to foreign citizens and persons without citizenship that have passed the interview test. At the present time, a new form of the Russian language exam is already being conducted in a number of testing centres within the Russian Federation, and three exam models have become widely used. In connection with that, the relevant tasks of Russia’s current testing practice are as follows: identifying the nature and specifics of the “linguo-didactic interview test of Russian as a foreign language” concept; linguo-didactic analysis and evaluation of the existing models; experimental verification of their effectiveness, testing validity and evaluating materials contained in each model; development and validation of a new complex model of interview tests of Russian language for foreigners applying for citizenship of the Russian Federation. Possible ways of solving those relevant issues are proposed in this article. © 2015, Mediterranean Center of Social and Educational Research. All rights reserved.