Diagnostics of migrant children’s Russian language proficiency in primary school

   The problem of teaching Russian to migrant children is widely considered in modern science. Researchers are looking for effective approaches to teaching young foreign speakers in a language environment. The development of such approaches is impossible without the diagnosis of Russian language proficiency of children studying at modern Russian schools.

   The purpose of this study is to analyze the results of the diagnosis conducted with the aim to test the Russian language proficiency of firstgraders, foreign speakers, and to identify the language aspects that should be included in the content of teaching Russian as a non-native language in the 1st grade.

   To achieve this goal, we used such methods as a theoretical analysis and synthesis of scientific and methodological literature, a diagnostic testing of students and processing of its results using classification and analysis, the method of probabilistic forecasting to hypothesize the need to include specific language aspects in teaching Russian as a non-native language to first-graders. It was revealed that listening skills of first-graders are better developed than speaking. Accordingly, the additional course should include purposeful and systematically organized work on monologue speech, constructed in accordance with the methodological principles of teaching a non-native language. A correction course in the 1st grade should contain such grammatical topics, difficult for foreign speakers, as the gender and case of nouns and adjectives, the past and future tense of verbs. At the same time, the study should be organized in accordance with the functional approach to the Russian language grammar. Since students are proficient in elementary level vocabulary, the lexical material should be selected based on textbooks for the 1st grade. Special attention should be paid to the cognition of Russian culture. The results of the language diagnostics can be used in further scientific research into the methods of teaching Russian as a non-native language, in the creation of teaching materials for children of migrants, as well as in the course “Methods of Teaching Russian as a Non-Native Language” in higher education institutions.

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