What a textbook on Russian as a foreign language for adult students should be

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to set out the principles of writing a modern effective textbook on Russian as a foreign language (RFL) for adult learners from the position of Adult Learning Theory (ALT). The relevance of this topic is related to the fact that there is no modern, effective textbook of Russian as a foreign language for adults on the market of teaching and learning aids. Existing textbooks are focused primarily on students and young people. They often do not correspond to the real needs of adult learners. The introduction of the article examines the main elements of a textbook for teaching RFL: its function, content, methodology and structure, as well as the main statements of the theory of ALT. In the second part, the main shortcomings and drawbacks of the existing textbooks for teaching RFL are highlighted, and specific examples are shown as well. In the third part, the principles of writing a modern textbook for adults are revealed: the functions of such a manual are outlined, the content is described, the method is defined, and its structure is sketched out.

Keywords

• textbook for teaching Russian as a foreign language
• Adult Learning Theory
• adult students
• students’ needs
• multimodality