THE BASIC LEXICON IN TRAINING RUSSIAN LANGUAGE TO BEGINNERS

Ikhsangalieva G.K.,
Doctor of Philology, professor
Nurzhanova Zh.S.,

PhD, associate professor
(Almaty, al-Farabi Kazakh National University)

The aspect of training the lexical system of Russian is still uncultivated linguistically and not organized methodically. This circumstance is explained by the fact that "first, the systemacity in lexicon is the most difficult phenomenon in the language structure as the vocabulary is still difficult to regulate, and secondly, the word itself as the main base unit of language is also very complex, multi-pronged and multi-dimensional phenomenon, universal in its character and unique in terms of the functions performed in the language" [2, p. 45]. However, in teaching Russian as foreign language we inevitably face the problem of minimizing the vocabulary, its selection and organization the lexical material for teaching Russian language at different levels. It is clear that learning all the words and mastering them actively are impossible.

The active and passive vocabulary of the person speaking the native language is ranging from 10 thousand to 30 thousand words on the average. So how many words should know the student studying Russian language and which words select? In the methodology there are developed principles of such selection on the basis of which the lexicon assessment is carried out. They can be divided into: statistical, methodological, linguistic principles.

The statistical criterion is defined by the frequency and the lexicon consumption. Pronouns have the greatest frequency in Russian, including personal, possessive, demonstrative pronouns, conjunctions, verbs of motion, and etc. The consumption of lexicon depends on the situation. For example, names of food don't belong to frequency lexicon, however for foreigners these concepts are of particular importance.

The methodical criterion focuses the pupil on the training purposes and speech subjects offered by the training program. It is necessary to include those words which correspond to studied subject in training. These words can be not frequency, but their absence will put speakers in a difficult situation during creation of the sentence.

The linguistic criterion is based on compatibility of the word, word-formation property, a stylistic neutrality of the word and opportunity to create the statement.

Thus, to form lexical minimum of the language we have to choose words that are combined with a wide range of other units and have a broad meaning, constitute a series of derivatives are not associated with the narrow sphere of usage, play the leading role of certain units to create sentences.

The lexical minimums can be for the beginners and advanced students of training, there are basic words for reading, basic words for the language of specialty, etc. These minimums underlie the formation of the active dictionary. The active vocabulary includes words used by people in the production of speech and writing, and students are able to use them in complex. The passive vocabulary includes lexical items that the student knows, hears, in the text, but does not use in speech. The passive vocabulary is receptive. The trainee, knowing how to spell a word, are able to correlate with the word meaning, they hear the sound and spelling in complex and can explain what they see. For example, город/ городской, подарок/ подарить, группа/групповой. The passive vocabulary increases due to potential dictionary that includes words, the meaning of which students can guess by the similarity with the native language. There is the international lexicon, where the words are defined by the derivation and by context. The vocabulary of the trainee is formed on the basis of a language guess. The ability to correlate word-formation models in the speech is a means of expanding the potential dictionary.

One of the main problems at the beginning level of training language in the field of lexicon is the formation of lexical skills. There are the accurate determination of the meaning of the lexical unit, its correct combination to other units in the speech according to the set situation, the correct correlation of this lexical unit with synonyms and antonyms, and also mastering rules of word formation.

In teaching vocabulary at the beginning level it is necessary to select and enter the lexicon, combined with an actual theme. It is important to select especially carefully the minimal vocabulary for new coming students to help them to adapt as painlessly as possible to the new conditions of residence or training activities at the university. Providing a lexical basis for formation the speech skills and abilities, creation of lexical base for training in grammar is the integral criterion of teaching language as foreign at the beginning level.

Learning vocabulary is the main subject to train grammar, phonetics, distinction between sounds and spelling is provided in the statements with the corresponding lexical content. For example - Это стол. Это ручка. Ручка тут. Стол там. Vocabulary includes personal pronouns and nouns at the introduction into the category of nouns` gender: дом, стол, тетрадь, словарь, комната, студент, окно, общежитие. At the introduction of cases the vocabulary is selected taking into account requirements of grammar.

To effective and rational introduction to the vocabulary it is necessary to determine the volume and structure of lexical minimum, the minimum quantity of words which will allow to use language as a means of communication, on the one hand, on the other, this lexicon is the maximum number of words in terms of educational opportunities of the pupil and the number of studying hours which have been taken for language acquisition.

During the selecting lexical minimum for the beginners it is necessary to remember that there are words with one meaning and multiple-meaning words, homonyms, synonyms and antonyms. All of these groups should be represented in the lexical minimum at the beginning level. The quantity of synonyms at the beginning level of studying language is minimal; as a large number of words are similar but differing in their meaning complicate their active use.

Depending on specific conditions and the training purposes certain units of synonymic lines or not included in the minimum, or divided between active and passive vocabulary. For example, in the active vocabulary will be included words, such врач, работать, сочинение, еда, and большой, into the passive - доктор, трудиться, эссе, пища, огромный. Antonyms are included in the lexical minimum as sufficiently large group: умный – глупый, большой – маленький, длинный – короткий, тут – там, день – ночь, горячий – холодный. They are introduced in connection with certain conversational topic and actively used. Multiple-meaning words may be included in a minimum in all its meanings, for example, идти – the meaning is «to walk» and in combination with a figurative meaning of the verb: дождь идет, время идет.

Multiple-meaning words may be represented by only in certain meanings and lexical-semantic variants; so the verb отвечать has three meanings, thus is activated the meaning «дать ответ» and not «соответствовать чему-либо» (отвечать нормам, духу времени), as the last meaning is peculiar to the social and journalistic speech; идти is used much later in the figurative sense: «это платье тебе идет».

At the selection of minimum for the beginners it is necessary to distinguish not only lexical-semantic but also lexical-grammatical variants. For example, verb помогать/помочь forms such lexical-grammatical variants, like помогать/ помочь кому что делать and помогать кому в чем. The first variant of verb is possible for the active use, and second is for passive.

For the productive types of speech activity another words are often required as compared to those that is needed for realization of receptive types of speech activity. Productive minimums are made on situation-thematic basis within the framework of the subjects determined by the program of course. At drafting of minimums for reading are used frequency dictionaries that reflect the real use of words in texts, everyday speech.

In our view, it is also necessary to take into account the desire of foreign students receive the professional training in Russian, thus, the leading sphere of communication on the beginning level becomes educational and professional. Therefore the program presented by us for this contingent of students must correspond to their requirements in this sphere. Consequently, they need to learn vocabulary taught by teacher in the classroom on such subjects, like the language of specialty, vocabulary contained in the professionally oriented texts and lexicon which is active in speech and writing of different profiles. Thus, we provide the students with minimum vocabulary of the language of specialty, and students tend to meaningful mastery of terminological vocabulary, correlating them with one or another group of lexical and eventually put them into a coherent system. Thus the student comes from concepts known in his native language to the expression of these concepts and words in the target language, in this case Russian.

Thus, from all the major aspects of any language as foreign that students should study practically in the learning process, the most important and essential, in our opinion, should be considered teaching vocabulary, because without vocabulary language proficiency is impossible.

References:

1. Kapitonova T. I., Moskovkin L. V. Metodika obucheniya russkomu yazyku kak inostrannomu na etape pedvuzovskoy podgotovki. SPb: Zlatoust, 2005. – 272 s.

2. Shchukin A. N. Metodika prepodavaniya russkogo yazyka kak inostrannogo. M.: Russkiy yazyk, 2003. – 334 s.