Polycode text in the class of country studies (pre-university stage of international students’ training, level A2)

Abstract

The article deals with the issues of developing and using the polycode text, as an innovative means of teaching a non-native language, and the content of the concept of “polycode text”. Russian methodologists interpret the polycode text features, which consist in the combination of verbal and non-verbal - pictorial and acoustic components. The article presents our polycode texts addressed to international students of the pre-university training stage (A2 level). Using the material of the discipline “Country Studies”, the section “History of Russia”, I have developed three polycode texts on the topic “Kievan Rus'”, which familiarize international students with the information about the formation of the Old Russian state and its social structure, about the system of writing and the birth of the educational system in ancient Russia and about the adoption of Christianity as the state religion. Our techniques, providing the polycode character of educational texts, are based on infographics, text creolization, comics, video materials available by QR codes, as well as interactive Internet materials - quest-games and interactive maps available by links. The article gives examples of pre-text tasks, text reading tasks and post-text tasks: they are also constructed as polycode tasks. The results show the effectiveness of polycode teaching tools and the possibility of using the proposed model of their development and use for other disciplines and stages of teaching the Russian language to foreign speakers.