Efficiency of Using Educational Excursions in Teaching Russian Language to Foreign Students

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the effectiveness of conducting excursions for foreign students in teaching Russian as a foreign language. The effectiveness of excursions for foreign students in teaching Russian as a foreign language was determined as a result of an experiment conducted in six first-year groups at the Russian Language Department of Medical Institute of Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. The students were from different countries: Morocco, France, Iran, Lebanon, Uzbekistan, Israel, Armenia, China, Peru, Nigeria, Abkhazia, Jamaica, Egypt and Costa Rica. Three groups (45 students) studied Russian as a foreign language without excursions, and the other three groups (48 students) studied Russian as a foreign language actively visiting cultural places in Moscow. To determine the level of students' communicative competence, testing was carried out. Comparison of the results in all six groups unambiguously showed that at the end of the school year the abilities of the students of the experimentative groups according to all criteria were 20-35% higher than those of the students of the control groups. The article contains methodological and practical recommendations on teaching Russian language to foreign students when immersing them in the language environment, as well as when getting acquainted with the history and culture of Russia. The practical usefulness of the study lies in the fact that its results, together with the collected material, can be used to create textbooks and conduct practical classes in Russian as a foreign language, as well as in the system of training and advanced training in Russian as a foreign language. The results of the research can also be used for lecturing or conducting special courses on the theory and methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language, developing teaching materials for foreign students, organizing refresher courses and exchanging pedagogical experience