Barren, primitive language eventually leads to primitive life and to the society’s degradation. This is why it is so important for linguists to capture children’s attention with learning Russian, to make them be carried away with its vivid imaginative world. This was the main topic of the “Developing Motivation to Learn Russian Language” All-Russia Conference.
The organizers of the conference were the Russian Academy of Education, Russkiy Mir Foundation and Russian Association of the Russian Language and Literature Teachers, which gathered 150 participants from 57 constituent units of the Russian Federation. Opening the Plenary session, Deputy Chairman of Russkiy Mir Foundation, Prorector of the Saint Petersburg State University Sergei Bogdanov drew a parallel between the present moment and late 18th century, when a great state was also being rebuilt and a necessity to pay special attention to the Russian language as a state language emerged. This is why making a Russian language dictionary became one of the first important project of the Russian Academy, which was created by Catherine the Great.
“Today, saving the Russian language is becoming the issue of state concern again”, emphasized Bogdanov. At the end of the year, the third Pedagogical Forum is going to take place and the best practices of teaching Russian will be presented there. Soon, at the end of May, one more symbolic event – the First Congress of the Russian Philology Association - will be held.
President of the Russian Academy of Education, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Russkiy Mir Foundation Lyudmila Verbitskaya mentioned, that the fact of creating a Russian Language Board at the President of the Russian Federation tells about the attention to the Russian language from the highest state level. “Everyone wants to save the language, but have only seen the opposite, so far”. She cited the words of philosopher Vladimir Solovyev, that every person should have a good command of three styles of speech: high, common and low. Each one of them should be used for its own situation. Vladimir Solovyev thought that self-talk can be conducted using low style.
Every person can have a situation, when such a self-talk is required. Lyudmila Verbitskaya even told about a situation from her own life, when she had to haunt thresholdsof the Ministry of Defense when Pavel Grachev was the Minister in order to save a military department at her alma mater – Saint Petersburg University. “When I was strolling from one room to another for the umpteenth time, I was saying something to myself”, joked Verbitskaya.
So, there is nothing shameful in the fact of having a command of the low style itself. According to her, the problem is that low style has taken the place of the common style, and the high style has disappeared completely. “Thus, today saving the Russian language and developing motivation to learn language have become the issues of the society’s safety”, she said. She is also sure, that there is no other language with such a vivid picturesqueness and intonation uniqueness and the main teachers’ task is to captivate children by the rich and diverse world of the Russian language.
Special guest of the Conference Natalia Solzhenitsyna shared her own experience in this issue. It is well known, that she was in exile together with her husband and three kids for a long time and lived in such a secluded place, where there was even no Sunday school, not to speak about an ordinary school with Russian.
According to Solzhenitsyna, motivation for learning Russian was out of the question, when her children were small. But when it came to going to the local school, it became clear that they can just forget Russian. And then Natalia Dmitrievna, having no clue about the methods of teaching and learning Russian, started learning a verse a day with her children. “One can extend memory thanks to verses, and it will help you all life long, even if the verses become forgotten”, Natalia Solzhenitsyna is sure. Her children, who have a great command of both spoken and written Russian language, are a living confirmation of that.
In fact, there are many interesting methods of teaching language, told Pedagogical Sciences Doctor, Professor of the Saint Petersburg State University Elena Kazakova. In particular, she recalled that four out of six winners of the previous Pedagogical Forum told not about the problems of their work, but about the opportunities and prospects, that learning of the Russian language gives. “We heard about fantastic projects, about quest-rooms of the Russian language, saw enthusiastic people, who said they were incredibly lucky to teach the best subject in the world to the best kids in the world”, told Kazakova.
The fact that one of the most popular groups’ name in the “Vkontakte” social network is “I love Russian” is also confirming the living interest to the Russian language and that its popularity is growing. It has one million 176 thousand followers – quite huge numbers. The group is being updated daily; the updates give rise to numerous discussions, told Kazakova, who also joined the group.
The same fascination should be transferred to the school subject. “Fascination guarantees results, it raises the bar and is changing the speech”, Elena Kazakova is sure. And it does not mean simplification. In fact, research shows that simple but boring tasks are difficult for teacher, but not effective for students. “In case the tasks do not inspire, the teacher has to draw on his or her own expertise and skills in order to gain the required result”, the Professor thinks. It is clear that in this case even the most talented teacher is not enough. And difficult tasks do not require additional motivation – they are themselves a trigger, which wakes interest.
First and foremost, the success in learning Russian is connected with the teachers successfulness, who speaks vividly and figuratively, with interesting environment and interesting activity. This is why a very careful attention should be paid to playing technologies, which are now coming to studying. In case Russian lessons are perceived as the most important ones at school, this will also affect the society itself, says Kazakova. “We live the way we speak”, she thinks and the message is clear – we have to get to learning language properly in order to live better.
