Basic theories and conceptions of language and culture co-learning

This article deals with the basic theories and conceptions of language and culture co-learning emerged in Russian Pedagogy at the end of XX - the beginning of XXI centuries. The author states that socio-cultural and economic factors, political events contributed to the fact that a foreign language became a real mean of communication and a mean of connecting people from different cultures. It provides their interaction and becomes a source of information about the world, a way of self-development, and professional knowledge expansion. The interest to the communicative and cultural components of the discipline "Foreign Language" has caused a change in the goal-oriented attitudes, content, methods, that is the change of the entire structure of the educational organization process. It contributed to an essential change in the teaching approaches, especially, to its compulsory study in the context of culture. It is shown that the search for new forms of cultural integration in the process of learning a foreign language resulted into the development of theories and concepts that concentrate around the main provisions of the cultural approach to the teaching of humanitarian disciplines. The main emphasis is made on scientific works united by a common cultural idea - the study of a foreign language in a unity with the culture of the people in the framework of the dialogue of cultures: "Sociocultural approach to teaching a foreign language as a specialty", "Intercultural communicative competence and cultural and linguistic pragmatics in the theory and practice foreign languages teaching", "The concept of communicative foreign language education", "The concept of multicultural language education". The unifying principle of these works is the idea of the importance of study of language and culture in a combination. Despite some differences in these scientific concepts, the conclusion about the necessity and importance of teaching language, and in particular foreign language, as a cultural component, is universally recognized. It is concluded that these fundamental studies have set the direction of learning a foreign language for further decades. The importance of further development of the issues of foreign language and culture study consists of educational potential. It promotes a better understanding of a foreign culture, helps to understand the diversity and richness of cultures, and to understand the native culture more deeply. This will have an impact not only on the formation of an individual culture of learners, but it will also enable them to acquire the necessary skills and abilities to communicate with representatives of other cultures.

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