ИСТИНА

The paper depicts linguodidactic base of “The Art of Russian”: the mixed learning course. The course combines new approaches to modern e-learning and sixty years of experience teaching Russian as a foreign language at the Department of Philology of the Moscow State University. The Art of Russian training programme is specially tailored for studying Russian language in the classroom and online. It consists of “The Tools” text book, “The Workshop” workbook, audio materials and tests. Why such titles? The text book provides the students with the instruments (knowledge of phonetics, grammar, vocabulary, syntax) that will allow them to unleash their creativity in workshop (speaking, writing, listening, reading). After mastering a lesson in “The Tools” (if taught not in the classroom the student is welcome to ask questions online) and upon completion of corresponding tasks in the Workshop (excluding speaking) the student sends the results to the teacher and conducts a session via Skype aimed to developing speaking and listening. The course consists of 16 modules with specific topics (e.g. ‘Let’s get acquainted!’, ‘Where do you live?’, ‘We are Hobby people! And you?’ etc.). Upon completion of each 4 modules, the students undergo an evaluation test, the last of which corresponds to the certified Elementary Level test in Russian (A-1 in ALTE). The central idea of the course is tight control of the students learning activities. The authors created a technology allowing to operate the learning process with complex hierarchic system of grammar, speech and communicative tasks. The teacher anticipates and directs the activities of the students, comments on the results and provides recommendations on how to continue. The authors firmly believe that mastering foreign languages is an artistic process in which the success is achievable through perseverance and inspiration.