Between 1 and 2 December 2023, a delegation of the staff members and students from the Faculty of Philology of VSU took part in an international forum “Language and culture in terms of the current issues of linguistic education in Russia” dedicated to the Year of Teachers and Mentors and the 200th anniversary of K.D. Ushinskiy.
The forum was organised by Voronezh State Pedagogical University. The co-organisers were Donetsk State University (Donetsk People's Republic), Universite de Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo), and the Russian Centre for Science and Culture (Brazzaville, Congo Republic). The purpose of the forum was to analyse the current issues in the field of linguistic education and provide a platform where researchers and teachers could discuss teaching Russian and foreign languages at schools and universities.
The forum was comprised of two conferences: “Current linguistic situation and ways to improve the training of language teachers” and “Linguistic, linguo-didactic, and linguo-cultural studies as a response to the challenges of modern linguistic education”. Teachers and master’s degree students from the Faculty of Philology participated in the first conference, which focused on the development of Russian language in the modern social and cultural environment, the current linguistic situation and speech culture, linguistic analysis of literary texts, the issues of teaching Russian as a national and native language at secondary and higher education institutions in Russia, and the methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language.
Associate Professors Marina Panova, Elena Sidorova, and Olga Shvetsova took part in the panel “Issues of teaching Russian as a national and native language at secondary and higher education institutions in Russia. Current issues in the training of language teachers in the modern social and cultural environment. Developing a linguistic identity in school children and students. Pros and cons of digitalisation of linguistic education”. They talked about the importance of teaching history and languages to future language teachers and new methodological and scientific works for students and teachers published by the Department of Russian Language of the Faculty of Philology. All reports presented interesting and detailed information that can be used in practical teaching of Russian language and literature at school and at university.
Literary scholars from VSU took part in the panel “Interpretation of Russian classical and modern literature. Russian provinces in local cultural texts”. The presented studies focused on two problems. The first involves the characteristics and aesthetic facts of transition periods (the Silver Age – a report by Professor Olga Berdnikova; the 1920s – a report by a master’s degree student Dmitry Sokolov, and the 1990s – a report by Professor Tamara Nikonova). Other scholars focused on studying Voronezh and other local texts (poems published in Zhelezny Put magazine in the 1920s – a report by Professor Tatiana Ternova; Andrey Platonov's works – reports by Associate Professor Oleg Aleinikov and a PhD student Sofia Azizova; A. Novikov’s works – a report by a teacher Olga Solovieva; and works by V. Shukshin and B. Ekimov – a report by Associate Professor Anna Frolova).
Associate Professor Elena Plyaskova and senior lecturer Alla Kurkina took part in the panel “Methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language. Issues of linguistic education in a multilingual environment. Preparing study guides and methodological materials on teaching Russian as a foreign language at school and at university”. They talked about the specifics of using journalistic texts when teaching Russian as a foreign language. Associate Professor Maria Pogorelova presented a comparative analysis of the main parts of speech in Russian and in Turkmen languages. Associate Professor Elena Kuidina suggested some new sources of materials that can be used when teaching Russian as a foreign language. Omar Sou, a PhD student from the Department of Russian Literature of XX–XXI Centuries, the Theory of Literature and Humanities, talked about studying Russian in Senegal.
“Staff and students from the Faculty of Philology are grateful to the organisers of the forum for the high level of scientific discussion and an interesting dialogue about the problems of linguistic education. It was useful to exchange opinions on the topic with other scholars. The atmosphere at the forum was very friendly. It was a real pleasure to meet our colleagues, many of whom were graduates of the Faculty of Philology of VSU”, said Associate Professor Anna Frolova, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Philology.
