Developing Russian written speech skills in foreign students using the textbook “Let’s Write About...”

The article examines various approaches to developing writing skills in students learning Russian as a foreign language. Primary attention is given to the new textbook “Let’s Write About…”, developed by a team of authors from the Institute of Russian as a Foreign Language at Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. The research objective is to substantiate and develop a model for teaching writing to foreign students, based on a differentiated approach and its application in the new textbook “Let’s Write About…”. The scientific novelty lies in the substantiation of a comprehensive approach to teaching writing: 1) a scientifically grounded system for teaching writing has been developed, tailored for foreign philology students in a mixed-level group, including a) those with different language proficiencies from A1-A2 (China, Vietnam, Korea) to B1-B2 (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan), and b) students belonging to various linguacultural communities; 2) the linguodidactic and cultural-studies potential of texts of different genres and styles, enabling the modeling of individual learning trajectories, has been described and realized. This approach is deemed most effective for diverse ethnic groups. The study found that the textbook’s wide range of assignments and materials of varying complexity, the integration of multimedia resources and interactive tasks, and the emphasis on the cultural value of the learning texts contribute to reinforcing culturological knowledge and developing the skills to produce original written texts of different genres and styles.