Situational Communication in Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language to Beginner Learners

The paper presents the results of a study that explores the real teaching experience designing different kinds of speech situations during lessons of Russian as a Foreign Language for beginner learners. The study was carried out at National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University in the 2014-2015 academic year. The primary concern was to discover the most productive set of expressions and speaking turns for situational communication. The outcome is an algorithm of designing speech situations and a typology of speech situations. The paper may be of interest to practising teachers of Russian as a foreign language, students from teacher training colleges and to anyone who is interested in the methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language.