Sociological survey as a material for developing critical thinking in learners of Russian as a foreign language

This article is dedicated to methodological recommendations for fostering critical thinking skills in Russian as a foreign language (RFL) learners at university. The aim of this research is to create a complex of practical assignments designed to cultivate critical thinking in foreign students within an RFL course. Defining critical thinking as a specific type of cognitive activity comprising a set of particular skills and strategies, the author describes a series of assignments designed to train foreign students to interpret the meaning and content of information, assess its credibility, seek out and compare ideas, and formulate and justify their own perspective supported by concrete arguments and facts. The development and practice of each of these abilities contribute to the formation of a comprehensive critical thinking skill. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the use of statistical data from a sociological survey as practical material for developing critical thinking in RFL classes. For this purpose, the survey “Artificial Intelligence: Threat or Bright Future?”, conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTSIOM) in 2022, was employed. As experience demonstrates, interactive assignments, especially those incorporating modern authentic material and relevant discussion topics, help to engage students and significantly diversify lessons by going beyond the traditional communicative themes offered in textbooks. Thus, in language classes, foreign students can not only hone their new linguistic skills and improve their overall level of communicative competence, but also lay the foundations of critical thinking, which can subsequently be applied in various fields of science as well as in everyday life.