Olympiad in Russian language as a form of bilingual student linguistic development

Abstract

An extensive experience of the Kazan Federal University scholars for the performance of linguistic competitions at various levels, including international ones, allows to generalize and to formulate the guidelines for the preparation of bilingual students to the competitions of this type. In this article the authors consider Russian language Olympiad as one of the most effective forms to enhance the language development of bilingual students who know the native language, on the one hand (e.g., Tatar, Chuvash, Bashkir, Mordovian, Udmurt one, etc.), on the other hand, they know Russian language as they learn it at school. The urgency of the problem is in the fact that teachers often have difficulties in the preparation of students for the Olympics and in the increase of their interest to an intellectual competition, to the linguistic outlook increase, to the indepth study of Russian language. The purpose of the article is to analyze the Olympiad tasks and participants' responses, to develop the guidelines for teachers, to prepare bilingual students for the Olympics. The main research methods were analysis, observation, description, generalization and classification. During the preparation for the Olympic Games it is recommended to focus on student interests, to take into account the difficulties of Russian language facts mastering for bilingual students, communication skills, corrections, the psycho-emotional attitude of students, etc. We believe that this study contributes to the field of language education, to the language training of students, to the work with gifted children. It may be interesting for the teachers who teach bilingual students.