Usage of literary texts to develop reading and writing skills in teaching Russian as a foreign language: Level A2

The aim of this research was to assess the effects of the usage of literary texts as supplementary material to the main textbook, on the abilities of the students to read and write, in teaching Russian as a foreign language. For this purpose, the answer was sought to the question; "Does the usage of literary texts result in changes in reading and writing skills of A2-level students?". In order to reach a conclusion, one of the semi-experimental designs, a pretest-posttest control group experimental model test, was performed on 15 students from different branches in Bogazici University, all of whom were taking the elective course Russian 202 (A2 level) during the 2021-2022 spring term from the Modern Languages Unit of the Foreign Languages Department. Before the experiment, both the test and control groups were given a story to read, after which they were subjected to the initial tests to reveal their proficiency levels. Following this step, the test group was subjected to 4 two-hour classes where they worked on four different literary texts, and performed various reading and writing activities. In the final stage, both the test and control groups were asked to read the same new story, and participate in a final (post) test. The initial and final test results were then analyzed to determine whether there were any significant differences that occurred between the test and control groups. The analysis revealed, that the level of success of the test group that worked with additional literary texts was significantly higher than that of the control group that did not receive the additional classes. In accordance with these findings, it was concluded that usage of literary texts has a favorable effect on the reading and writing abilities of students.