Russian-Chinese collocation glossary for teaching written speech to A2-level Chinese students

Abstract

Problem. One of the most persistent challenges in teaching Russian as a foreign language at the A2 level is the transition from knowledge of individual thematic words to their normative use in written speech. Chinese students are able to recognise education-related vocabulary but encounter difficulties in selecting a typical lexical partner and in the grammatical structuring of these collocations within a sentence. Aim. To determine the potential of using a Russian-Chinese learner’s collocation glossary in the field of education for developing skills in using target collocations in writing among A2-level Chinese students and to identify the types of errors that persist after working with the glossary. Methods. The study employs a pilot qualitative-descriptive design. The material comprises 18 sets of written assignments completed during two classroom sessions. The approbation included three stages: an initial assessment without any special support, practice without the glossary, and practice with the glossary. The units of observation were collocations, sentences, and short cohesive texts. Results. It was found that students are more con-fident in recognising ready-made collocations than in producing them in writing. Prior to consulting the gl ossary, the most common errors involved inappropriate selection of lexical partner and random thematic substitutions; after working with the glossary, such errors decreased. However, errors in agreement, case government, and inflectional word-forms persisted. Conclusions. The Russian-Chinese glossary facilitates more accurate written use of educa-tion-related collocations, but its effectiveness increases when combined with targeted exercises on grammatical transformation, contextual use, and the construction of brief micro-texts.