Development of Chinese students’ lexical competence based on a special system of exercises (in the context of teaching Russian as a foreign language)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of developing the lexical competence of Chinese students studying Russian as a foreign language at the B1-B2 levels, in the context of the intensification of Russian-Chinese educational cooperation and the growth of academic mobility. The purpose of the study is to develop, theoretically substantiate and experimentally test the effectiveness of a special system of lexical exercises aimed at translating vocabulary from passive vocabulary into active vocabulary and improving the correctness of its use in spontaneous speech. The empirical basis was formed by a pedagogical experiment conducted in 2023-2025 at the federal University with the participation of 120 students from China, divided by random sampling into experimental and control groups, comparable in terms of language proficiency, age and academic performance. In the experimental group, along with the traditional program, a multilevel system of exercises was introduced, including receptive-reproductive, reproductive-productive and productive-creative blocks based on the principles of communicative-activity and cognitive approaches, taking into account the interference of the native language; in the control group, training was conducted according to the standard methodology. The effectiveness was assessed on the basis of input and final testing of the volume of active and passive vocabulary, indicators of lexical compatibility and the coefficient of correct use of lexical units in spontaneous speech; statistical data processing was carried out using methods of variation statistics and Student's t-test (p 0.05). The results showed that in the experimental group, the relative increase in active vocabulary was 47,1% versus 17,0% in the control group, passive – 35,1% versus 26,0%, and the coefficient of lexical correctness increased from 61,4% to 85,2% (in the control group – from 60,9% to 68,1%). The discussion of the results suggests that the proposed system provides not only a quantitative expansion of the lexicon, but also a qualitative restructuring of the ratio of active and passive vocabulary, contributing to the formation of holistic lexical competence as a key component of the communicative competence of Chinese students.