The animate/inanimate category in teaching Russian as a foreign language: The results of experimental work

The article presents the results of the development and implementation of a methodological system of tasks aimed to develop grammatical competence of international students on the basis of the animate/inanimate category, which is a unique linguistic phenomenon ‘built’ on the opposition of ‘the animate’ to ‘the inanimate’. The study of this grammatical category in the linguodidactic aspect has a great potential due to the specifics of the category under consideration, as it requires not only the knowledge of grammatical rules, but also the ability to evaluate the semantic characteristics of nouns in a particular context. The presented linguodidactic system includes the following types of tasks – preparatory (imitative, substitutional, transformational and retelling) and speech tasks. In addition, when preparing educational materials, the principle of clarity is taken into account, which we believe to be a key element of working with the Russian grammatical category under consideration. During the experimental work it was revealed that the developed system of exercises in combination with theoretical material enabled students from other language backgrounds to gain a deeper and more systematic understanding of the grammatical material and prepare them for the effective application of the acquired knowledge and skills in real communication. The results of this study will be in demand by teachers of RFL and students from other language backgrounds studying Russian both at the initial and more advanced stages of learning in order to form and improve their grammatical competence in Russian.