The article discusses the advantages of using video materials with foreign students. According to the authors, it is effective to use short cartoons in an RFL lesson, including beginner level students. Such work helps to increase students’ motivation, assimilation and consolidation of new and previously studied material (lexical, grammatical, phonetic and regional studies), and develops students’ listening and speaking skills by involving them in conversations and discussions, making the learning process more interesting as a whole. The authors propose methodological guidelines for the cartoon “Masha and the Bear” (the episodes “Bless you!” and “One, two, three! Shine, Christmas tree!”). The cartoon is offered for watching in the classroom as a part of the study of the relevant lexical topics. The work is carried out without the help of L1 (students’ native language). Our target audience is cadets of the preparatory course of the military university (far abroad), aged 18-20 years. Their language proficiency level is A1-A2. The presented tasks allow us to intensify the teaching process, make classes more interesting and dynamic. The authors have come to the conclusion that the use of short-length Russian cartoons in the lessons of Russian as a foreign language contributes to an increase in the effectiveness of teaching.