Workshop in New Delhi discusses peculiarities of teaching Russian language in Indian schools

On Monday, 30 January, the Russian House in New Delhi, the capital city of India, hosted the seminar "Russian Language and Literature in the Changing World: Values and Development Factors", as reported by Russkiy Mir (rus: Russian World) foundation.

The participants of the event discussed the role of the Russian language in the South Asian country, peculiarities of teaching it in India, as well as initiatives of the authorities to create online courses, cinematography of Pushkin's works, and other cultural issues.

The workshop was organized by the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature (MAPRYAL) jointly with the Indian Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature (INDAPRYAL) with the support of the foundation Russkiy Mir and Russian House in New Delhi.

The meeting was attended by 50 participants, teachers from Indian universities and schools, as well as their Russian colleagues. MAPRYAL delegation was headed by the President of the Association, Adviser to the Russian President Vladimir Tolstoy.

President of INDAPRYAL, Maharaja Sayajirao University Professor, Debal Dasgupta, presented an overview of the Government of India's initiatives to develop online Russian language courses on the national educational platform INFLIBNET.

Meena Bhatnagar, senior lecturer at the Centre for Russian Studies of Jawaharlal Nehru University, informed the participants about the history of INDAPRYAL and the current state of Russian language studies in India. At present Russian language is taught in 50 educational institutions in India, and the number of Russian students has increased by 2400 during 10 years, which has made India one of the most dynamically growing regions by this indicator.

Professor Niklasi Suryanarayan, Vice-President of INDAPRYAL and Head of the Department of Slavic and Finno-Ugric Studies at Delhi University, shared her experience in teaching the language. She recommended to her colleagues to address to film adaptations of Russian classics by Andrei Tarkovsky, Alexei German Jr. and other famous Soviet and Russian filmmakers.

According to the expert, it is the film text that allows students to focus their attention on the nuances of wordplay and metaphors, helping them to interpret the studied literary work.

The programme of the workshop was continued by presentations of Indian and Russian speakers on the use of high-style vocabulary and the unjustified use of borrowings in modern Russian, the peculiarities of teaching Indian students the language specialty in technical universities.

The workshop also included the awarding of the "Fyodor Dostoevsky. 200 years" medal to distinguished Indian scholars.

The XV MAPRYAL congress will be held on 12-16 September 2023 in St. Petersburg.

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