The function of literature in teaching Russian as a foreign language

In the PhD thesis titled The Function Of Literature In Teaching Russian As A Foreign Language, it is aimed to study how students could permanently improve their four basic language abilities and communicative competence, while also teaching Turkish students Russian language in Faculties of Literature by utilizing the way how classical and contemporary Russian literary texts present Russian in a communicative and cultural context. For this purpose, classical and contemporary Russian literature are discussed as options in teaching Russian as a foreign language for philological profile students. Apart from building the communicative competence of foreign students, a practice system is offered which aims to inform others about both contemporary Russian language and culture of the target language. Sample lessons of teaching Russian as a foreign language were given by using literary texts at different levels. This study is dedicated to the use of literary texts in practical lessons of Russian for students of Faculty of Literature in foreign universities. Russian lessons that used literary texts have taken place in Istanbul University Faculty of Literature. In the theoretical part of this study, we focused on process of foreign language teaching, features of the literature texts that are used, use of literature, fields of use, selection of these literature texts and adaptation of them. In the application part, examples from a few literary works are given that were used in Prep class lessons of Spoken and Written Expression and Spoken and Written Composition. L.N. Tolstoy's "Tri bublika i odna sushka" ("Three Kalachas and one bagel") and "Kostochka" ("The Plum Stone"),K.G. Paustovski's "Krujevnitsa nastya" ("Nastya the lace maker") and Y.Ya. Yakovlev's "Skripka" ("Violin") were the literary texts used in the lessons. Thanks to the literary works, philology students learn Russian language with all of its rich culture and diversity, expand their active and passive vocabulary, improve their language prediction ability and talking skills. While learning Russian abroad, it is concluded that works of Russian poets and writers become a tool for modelling the Russian lingual environment as the fact that literary texts are an effective tool for knowing the country and culture of the target language increases its doctrinal value.