The Russian language in the multilingual school of the Russian Far East: pedagogical strategies for supporting bilingual children and the design of effectiveness assessment

Abstract

The article reveals the specifics of teaching the Russian language in multilingual schools of the Russian Far East under conditions combining autochthonous linguistic diversity and growing migration flows, where Russian functions as a key resource for the social and academic integration of allophone and bilingual children. It is shown that normatively and methodologically dominant instructional models designed for native speakers are insufficiently sensitive to first-language interference and to the distinction between everyday command of Russian and the mastery of academic discourse, which results in persistent cognitive barriers and an increasing risk of school failure and maladjustment. Based on longitudinal observation (2019–2023) in schools of Primorsky Krai, Khabarovsk Krai, and Yakutia, involving students aged 7–16, teachers, and administrators, the effects of three organizational and didactic solutions are compared: integrated language support within subject teaching with elements of CLIL, remedial courses delivered in extracurricular time, and standard instruction without specialized support. To capture the dynamics of language development, a lexical-grammatical density index calculated from oral and written productive texts is introduced, making it possible to assess functional literacy and syntactic-lexical complexity as an indicator of cognitive maturity in a non-native language. Quantitative results demonstrate the advantage of the integrated model: the increase in the index in the experimental intensive immersion group substantially exceeds the indicators of alternative approaches and is accompanied by a reduction in intragroup variability, which is interpreted as the catching up of lower-performing students. At the same time, a significant association between pedagogical practices and psychosocial parameters is shown: integrated strategies are associated with lower school anxiety, less social isolation, and more active participation in dialogue, whereas in the control group high anxiety is closely linked to declining academic achievement. Teacher readiness is analyzed separately: professional development yields a pronounced increase in instrumental competencies (scaffolding, RFL methodology) but has a much weaker effect on practices of interaction with migrant parents, indicating a structural deficit of communication and mediation mechanisms. A multifactorial interpretation underscores that the choice of pedagogical strategy explains a substantial share of differences in final success and is capable of compensating for a low initial level of language proficiency, while psychoemotional variables carry weight comparable to didactic ones, determining the requirements for a comprehensive design of evaluating the effectiveness of school-based language support.