science, but there were no books in his home and
village where he lived, so at the age of 19, the
young man walked to Moscow. Here it is worth
focusing on the spiritual and physical feat of the
scientist, who very much wanted to study. The
text also reports on how quickly our compatriot
became a real scientist and a great teacher,
studying various subjects in Russia and abroad.
After reading the text, the teacher asks the
students: "What can you tell about the great
scientist M.V. Lomonosov?" A student can
answer the teacher: "About this great scientist
one can say very briefly: Lomonosov created the
first Russian university." The dialogue continues,
and the teacher asks again: "What subjects did
M.V. Lomonosov study?" The student must list
from the text: chemistry, philosophy, foreign
languages. Next, a few more questions should be
asked to identify the degree of understanding of
the text: "At what age did Lomonosov start
studying, get acquainted with arithmetic and
grammar?", "Where did he study?" The answers
to these questions allow us to judge whether the
students really understood the main information
from the text. After the oral part, it is necessary
to move on to the written task, which can be
performed on the board. Let's suggest students,
following the authors of the textbook, to write the
following sentences using the verb "to be":
1) M.V. Lomonosov is a great Russian scientist;
2) M.V. Lomonosov is the founder of many
modern natural sciences (Shustikova, 2011,
p. 669).
However, we not only teach students
grammatical skills, but also teach them to work
with texts of general cultural content. In this
regard, the concluding part of working with this
text could be a Russian poet's reflection on the
scientist. Foreign citizens may be interested in
the opinion of the great Russian poet A.S.
Pushkin about the scientist, who metaphorically
called M.V. Lomonosov the first university:
"Lomonosov was a great man. He created the
first Russian university. He, one could say, was
our first university himself" (Shustikova, 2011,
p. 664). In this context, we can also refer to the
personalities of the chemist Butlerov, the doctor
Botkin, the writer and doctor Chekhov, who
studied at Moscow State University. As a
homework assignment, to continue independent
familiarization with the figure of the outstanding
scientist, we can suggest reading the text about
Moscow State University named after
M.V. Lomonosov from the same textbook. And
this is far from all the cultural background that
we can expand thanks to turning to these texts.
Special attention deserves the personality of the
physiologist I. P. Pavlov, who is the greatest
scientist of another period of history, namely the
turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Medical students
will be interested to get acquainted with the
culture of the New Time, learn about the
activities of a scientist who made a great
contribution to the development of world
physiology, studied the nervous system of the
body. Socio-cultural competence is formed here
through reading the text about a scientist who had
a difficult fate, a difficult material situation, but
who, despite this, became a great scientist and
organized the physiology department at the
Institute of Experimental Medicine in 1891. The
text about this scientist is also proposed for joint
reading with the teacher in the class. The text
"Ivan Petrovich Pavlov" can be found in the
modern textbook "Russian language for you"
(Shustikova, 2009). After the text, it is proposed
to answer questions related to understanding the
main content: "What education did Pavlov
receive?", "Why did Pavlov choose physiology
as his specialty?", "What can you say about
Pavlov's character?" (Shustikova, 2009, p. 122).
Students should also complete a number of
grammar tasks related to different voices of
participles and repetition of the category of time.
The authors are convinced of the high
effectiveness of complex work on the text, which
involves the use of a large number of vocabulary
and grammar exercises aimed at achieving
grammatical correctness of statements, as well as
communication-oriented exercises aimed at
understanding the text. As the main treating
methodology for creating social cultural
environment while teaching Russian as a foreign
language the authors propose to use culture study
content. A comprehensive analysis of texts
devoted to the biography of famous Russian
scientists is carried out, which allows medical
students to get acquainted with Russian science
and culture. The concept of "socio-cultural
competence" is analyzed as a multidimensional
social, cultural, psychologic and pedagogic
phenomena, connected with different
communicative arrangements and influencing
the process of a foreign student's personal
development and his successful interaction with
university in Russia.
Conclusion
Every country has its own history and cultural
values and for these reasons such educational
texts of a cultural nature are used by all
experienced Russian as a Foreign Language
(RFL) methodologists with the aim of making
RFL learning more interesting, culturally rich,