“Looking-Glass” as a method in the methodology of RFL: the case of Indonesian-Russian Interlanguage

The article is devoted to a new approach to the methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language (RFL) by revealing and applying in practice the laws of functioning of mirror neurons that can activate the synchronous perception of units of a non-native language. The human mirror neuron system functions by mapping perceived actions directly to the motor system, observing and mimicking actions, and improving understanding of other people’s thoughts and actions through motor imitation. Mirror neurons play an important role in social cognition, copycat behavior, and understanding other people’s behavior. In addition, mirror neurons contribute to a person’s ability to acquire new skills, understand intentions, and interpret verbal and non-verbal components of language. There are three distinct components of empathy: motor, emotional, and cognitive, directly dependent on mirror neuron function. Learning a foreign language is one of the most difficult human problems, because language activity occurs not only mechanically, but also mentally. This means that language activity is also associated with mental (brain) processes as well as with biological ones. In this regard, in our opinion, the study of a foreign language should rely on interdisciplinary research, in particular on neurobiological studies that reveal the essence of the work of mirror neurons in the cognitive aspect. The analysis of the functioning of mirror neurons is considered in the article on the analysis of typical errors made by Indonesian students in the RFL learning process, which reveal the mechanism of disturbances in the function of mirror neurons, which result in the occurrence of interferents of different tiers of the structure of the language. The proposed approach has great prospects in the methodology of teaching RFL to increase the efficiency of mastering Russian as a foreign language.