Modern teaching tools for the formation of metaphorical competence

The article analyzes the teaching tools available in the Russian language teaching methodology, which allow students to systematically master the figurative vocabulary of the Russian language and develop skills in understanding, interpreting and generating texts that include elements of a metaphorical nature. When describing the methodology for the formation of metaphorical competence in the process of teaching RFL, the provisions of the textbook theory regarding the requirements for the content of teaching Russian as a foreign language are taken into account. The formation of metaphorical competence among non-native speakers, according to the analysis of scientific and methodological works, is associated with the development of skills to recognize metaphors in the speech stream, interpret their content in context and produce oral and written texts containing figurative means of language. Didactic materials aimed at the formation of metaphorical competence must meet a number of additional requirements: they must contain authentic or adapted texts with elements of a metaphorical nature; include exercises aimed at comparing the direct and figurative meanings of words and expressions; and reflect the systemic nature of the figurative vocabulary of the Russian language. The empirical basis of the research was made up of the most well-known and widely used teaching tools in didactic practice: 1) Educational and methodical complexes ("The Road to Russia", "Russian souvenir" and "New souvenir", "5 elements"); 2) Textbooks on the formation of reading skills ("Missing plots", "The Box", "The Little Box", "Russia: Today"). In addition, during the analysis of educational materials, a special small group of RFL teaching tools was identified: 3) manuals directly aimed at the formation of metaphorical competence, which, through a system of tasks and exercises, demonstrate the implementation of cognitive metaphor in all types of speech activity, contribute to the development of figurative lexical and phraseological units by nonnative speakers and provide an opportunity to assimilate regular metaphorical units’ transfers. This group includes the R.E. manual. Bruskova's "Formation of metaphorical competence", developed for medical students who speak Russian at the B1-B2 level; as well as the educational complex of L. Bobrova, O. Kiselyov and J. Lantolfs "Metaphors in Russian" for intermediate and advanced students, which includes a workbook and a dictionary. An analysis of modern RFL teaching tools has shown that the materials of educational complexes of a general nature, as well as textbooks for the development of reading skills, include only individual tasks for mastering figurative meanings in comparison with direct ones and interpreting the associative-figurative meaning of words and expressions. The third group of textbooks focused on the development of metaphorical competence contains a systematically organized set of tasks and exercises, during which foreign students learn to recognize and interpret metaphors, work with direct and figurative meanings of words, and use metaphors in written and oral speech. Such tasks in the manual by R.E. Bruskova include transformational exercises for paraphrasing comparative constructions into metaphors and vice versa.; exercises to identify the initial and resulting conceptual spheres of metaphorical projections; tasks aimed at working with authentic texts and videos. In the educational complex "Metaphors in Russian", which includes an educational dictionary of metaphors of the Russian language and a workbook, the didactic material is organized in accordance with the initial spheres of metaphorical transfer ("animals", "colors", "sports") and the target sphere ("emotions"). Each exercise in the workbook is aimed at understanding the semantic associative connection between the original image and the figurative meaning of metaphorical nominations, as well as the productive use of metaphors in speech. As a result of the analysis, it is concluded that it is necessary to develop successful experience in developing specialized textbooks focused on studying the metaphorical system of the Russian language, using it when creating new teaching tools for Russian language. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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