Russian language as non-mother tongue in polyethnic region of russia

The article is devoted to the study of Russian language teaching specifics in non-Russian audience of Kazan Federal University (Russia). The following factors govern the designing of training events for the course and the strategy of teaching methods selection by the teacher: 1) the language situation in the multinational region of the Russian Federation; 2) practical focus of the course. The following reasons determine students’ motivation: a) Russian language for the future teachers of the Tatar language in the Republic of Tatarstan will serve both as a means of communication and as an instrument in future professional activity; b) perfect proficiency of two state languages will inspire trust and respect of schoolchildren, and in the long term will guarantee peaceful coexistence of peoples in the polyethnic republic. The article indicates topics, traditional and non-traditional techniques and methods of teaching Russian as a non-native language, which may be complex for students at the Higher School of Tatar and Turkic studies due to typological dissimilarity of the Russian and Tatar languages. By applying practical methods, the authors of the article found out that the targeted display of system-related differences between the Tatar and Russian languages contributes to elimination of negative influence of the native language on the target language, efficient assimilation of its norms and provision of fundamental vocational training for the future teacher. Texts offered for translation allow visualizing typological differences between two languages. Tasks for translation and comparison of the texts from both languages contribute to the practical actualization of lacuna units, similar and distinctive linguistic phenomena. In addition, this task provides a “subject-matter” support for verbal communication, enables to identify the opposition of similar language units, to reveal their communicative role, to guarantee communication success, i.e. to improve the effectiveness of practical focus in Russian language teaching.