Lecturers of Omsk State Pedagogical University gave courses in Russian as a Foreign Language and Russian Regional Studies as part of the additional professional educational program "Real Omsk Gold". The courses was funded by the Ministry of Education of the Omsk Region.
Over the course of two weeks, intensive classes were held under the guidance of qualified teachers from the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language and Pre-University Training. More than thirty students from different countries got acquainted with Omsk, the Omsk Region, the traditions and lifestyle of the peoples inhabiting it.
"The main goal of the program is to introduce foreign citizens to Siberia and Omsk, since the basic information about our region usually is related to the category of stereotypes: cold, harsh people, bears on the streets, etc. Each lesson is dedicated to one of the fragments of the "Omsk picture of the world": industrial Omsk, youth Omsk, the peoples of the Omsk Irtysh region, artistic Omsk - there are 15 such fragments in total, which form the unique image of our hospitable region. We are glad that the regional authorities pay serious attention to making the brand of our city and region recognizable not only in Russia, but also abroad. Conducting such international courses truly makes us closer to the rest of the world," says Vidanov Evgenii, head of the Department of Russian as a Foreign Language and Pre-University Training at OSPU.
"Last year, when my colleagues and I started developing the idea of educational events under the name "Real Omsk Gold", the main task was to tell Omsk residents about our famous fellow countrymen who made Omsk and its region famous in the format of a classic dictation. This idea was successful: we held ten mass educational events at different venues in the city. Now we have tried to turn this same idea into an international educational project and were glad to find support in the regional Ministry of Education, with whose participation the courses of Russian Language and Russian Regional Studies "Real Omsk Gold" were implemented at our university," explain Marina Shutyak and Yulia Litvinenko, teachers of the Faculty of Philology involved in this project.
It should be noted that in the current academic year, several large-scale studies in the field of educational, linguacultural and methodological aspects of teaching foreign citizens the Russian language are being implemented at Omsk State Pedagogical University. Thus, OSPU is holding a series of scientific and educational events under the state assignment of the Ministry of Education of Russia. The idea of the project is to study resource and information technology support for educational activities and management of the education system in order to organize and implement events to disseminate the best practices of Russian education, as well as supporting the study of the Russian language within the framework of cross-border cooperation with the Republic of Kazakhstan. In addition, the University continues research on the topic of psychological, pedagogical, sociocultural and linguodidactic support for citizens of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the field of studying the Russian language and Russian culture in a foreign language environment.
