The project method as a technology for creating an environment for mastering Russian as a foreign language: The experience of a Russian-Hungarian education project
Authors:   Tomsk State University, Nesterova Natalya G. , Hamsovszki Svetlana A. ,   Budapest Business University
Published: October 2024

The article presents the results of the implementation of a Russian-Hungarian educational project, conducted in the form of a remote Russian conversation club in 2021–2023. The participants of the project were master’s students from Tomsk State University (TSU) and students from Budapest Business University (BBU), who joined the project with their goals and achieved results important to both of the sides. The methodological basis of the study was scientific works on project-based learning. At BBU, Russian is taught as a specialty language. Many students have to start studying Russian at the university; they know very little about Russia, and their knowledge often diverges from reality. This fact makes it difficult to study the language and understand Russian culture. The training should be comprehensive. It is not enough for future economists and partners of Russian business people to learn a set of phrases and expressions used in the field of business communication. They are in need of knowledge about the Russian reality and cultural life of modern Russia. Thus, Hungarian students have a need to communicate with native speakers of the language they study. TSU master’s students studying philology, specializing in Russian as a foreign language, also need contact with their potential students and broaden their information about foreign students from different countries. It was decided to organize a club. The conversation club has become a multicultural space for thematic conversational online meetings using multimedia technologies (presentations, video and audio materials), in which not only representatives of Russia and Hungary, but also TSU undergraduates from other countries participated. They joined the project as part of the course Project and Research Activities in Philology. Creating a favourable atmosphere contributes to more successful learning. In accordance with the curriculum, the first block of this course involves studying the specifics of organizing project activities in education; design technologies; principles of organizing project activities, conditions and results of project activities; features of organizing project activities in the aspect of Russian as a foreign language. The objective of the project was to create optimal conditions for solving the above-mentioned tasks. The authors of the article emphasize that the Russian Club for Hungarian students became an opportunity to practice speaking skills in Russian with native speakers and became a guide to Russian culture. The particular significance of the project for undergraduates from TSU is that the project provides an opportunity to demonstrate both creative and role-based research activities based on interaction with young foreigners studying Russian. The project can be recommended as an effective technology for developing communicative competence among all project participants and professional competencies among future teachers of Russian as a foreign language.