The purpose of this work is to study how teachers and students react to the urgent large-scale transition to online education. The research was done via surveys conducted at the Center for Additional Educational Programs in the field of Russian as a Foreign Language at St. Petersburg State University. March 2020 transition to distance learning kept intact the lesson schedule, the duration of lessons, and the compliance with the approved programs. This case study was conducted as follows: (1) a questionnaire for teachers was distributed via e-mail; (2) teachers’ responses were collected and processed; (3) a questionnaire for students was created in Google Forms; (4) students’ responses were collected and processed; (5) the research results were described and analyzed; (6) teachers’ and students’ responses were compared. The study involved 45 teachers and 100 foreign students, mostly from China. The majority of teachers taught at Level A2 (48%); the majority of students studied at Level B1 (36%). The study shows that modern teachers (77.8%) have a high degree of adaptability, which allows them to switch to new teaching formats in two weeks. They use a variety of teaching aids: not only textbooks mandated by the curriculum (100%), but also other textbooks (91.1%), educational materials from the Internet (88.9%), authentic audio/video materials (51.1%), and self-developed educational materials (53.3%). According to students, the most effective are the authentic materials from the Internet (45%), and the textbook mandated by the program (41%). Both teachers and students noted difficulties in the online training of four language skills: speaking (35.6% of teachers and 32% of students), writing (17.8% and 32%, respectively), listening (15.6% and 40%), and reading (11.1% and 17%). Teachers lack personal communication with students (35.6%), specialized online tools for teaching Russian as a foreign language (13.3%), and effective means of monitoring the acquisition of educational material (31.1%). They strive to solve these problems through a variety of activities, creating an atmosphere conducive to authentic communication. Research data correspond with the conclusions of methodologists about the fundamentally new nature of the relationship between teachers and students in the virtual environment, which is manifested in a less hierarchic teacher-student relationship due to greater initiative, involvement, and independence of students in an online lesson. The article presents a way to study the perception of changes in the teaching mode by teachers and students. The research enriches the e-learning knowledge area with data on how the sudden mass transition to online foreign language learning was carried out.

It is crucial for teachers of Russian as a foreign language to investigate the way of development of the ideas about the teaching method in didactics and linguodidactics. Thereby, they can better understand the process of evolution of the scientific thought, its current state and define its prospects. It helps to build a modern theory of teaching that has a practical value. The purpose of this research is to describe the development of the ideas about the teaching method in didactics and linguodidactics, to identify its stages and to analyze the future prospects for the development of the theory of teaching, including the methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language. The research was based on about 80 theoretical works devoted to didactics and linguodidactics and practical guides for teachers, including manuals for teachers of Russian as a foreign language. The author used the methods of conceptual and contextual analysis, and the historical and descriptive research method. Analyzing the sources, the researcher identified three stages of the development of the ideas about the teaching method in didactics and linguodidactics. When the ideas about the teaching method originated (17th-19th centuries), this concept was not defined. However, the term teaching method was actively used, as it referred both to the teaching process and to the teachers actions in the classroom. At the stage of formation of scientific ideas about the teaching method (20th century), researchers compiled and analyzed empirical data. Different definitions and classifications of the teaching methods were proposed and various theories of teaching methods were developed. At the stage of critical rethinking (21th century), a new theory of teaching was introduced. It included the description of the main features of teaching methods, their functional classification, and recommendations on how to choose and develop a teaching method. The term teaching method is polysemantic, which causes a number of problems. If researchers manage to clearly define this term, a great contribution will be made not only to didactics and linguodidactics, but also to the theory of teaching Russian as a foreign language.

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The purpose of the study is to resolve the issue of whether there are difficulties of the Russian language that are common to different categories of learners of this language. Research methods are identification and comparative analysis of deviations from the norms in the use of nouns and noun phrases. The material of the study is data from observations of oral speech, written works, transcripts of recordings of stories based on pictures. The objects of analysis are the facts of deviations from the norms in the use of nouns and noun phrases in the speech of foreigners who study Russian as a second language, Russian-German bilinguals at the age of 10-15 years, Russian monolinguals at the age of 10 – 15 years. As a result of the study, the most typical similar grammatical errors were identified, indicating the general difficulties of the Russian language: the replacement of some case forms by others, the replacement of some forms by others within the same case, the replacement of prepositions, the mixing of possessive pronouns, violations of the agreement between the main and dependent words. The study has confirmed the hypothesis that there are common difficulties of the Russian language, which do not depend on the native language of students and are due to the structural diversity of the grammatical phenomena of the Russian language.

The article deals with the pedagogical terms “training” and “teaching”. Authors analyze their use in various contexts, including Ruscorpora examples and believe that training and teaching in the minds of teachers and many methodologists are types of pedagogical influence: teaching is the formation of knowledge, and training is the formation of skills. Attempts of scientists to establish subordination relations between them are recognized as illegal. The idea that training is a joint activity of a teacher and students is criticized.