South Ural State University, which is participating in the Project 5-100, has launched its own network of centres to promote Russian abroad and increase the quality of education of potential Chinese students before they arrive to study in Russia.
Students of the Beijing Union University, Xuchang University, Zhengzhou University of Aeronautics, Shenyang University of Technology, and a few other partner universities of SUSU have gained the opportunity to take free Russian training courses with the help of Russian teachers.
The coordinator for creating this partner network of centres was the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute (Moscow). SUSU became part of this partner network, opening its own research, education, and coordination centre under the Pushkin Institute brand.
“Chinese students who come to study in Chelyabinsk within dual degree or academic mobility programmes are distinguished by their perseverance and hard work, but Russian is not easy for them to study,” noted the coordinator of work on the formation of the partner network, head of the Department of International Relations and Regional Studies of the SUSU Institute of Linguistics and International Communications, Lyudmila Shestakova. According to her, study at the Pushkin Institute centres will help Chinese students overcome the language barrier.
For this, SUSU researchers and teachers have created a robot named Vanya who is able to recognise speech and generate answers in Russian. The robot is used as an assistant to Russian language teachers. This development has received a grant to realise the project within the federal target program “Russian Language”.
Chinese students participate in contests, and the teachers – in webinars and professional development courses. The materials for study are also available on the Study in Russian portal, which brings together all of the resources for studying Russian.
In 2019, the Pushkin Institute Centre at SUSU will hold Total Dictation, Day of Slavic Writing and Culture, Russian Language Day, and other events in China, per tradition.