ETHNIC AND LINGUISTIC PECULIARITIIES OF NATURAL SCIENCES SPECIALTIES STUDENTS IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING (CASE STUDY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SAKHA (YAKUTIA))

Abstract

The article deals with national and regional specifics of students, namely, their ethnical and linguistic peculiarities. The purpose is to find the cause of “communicative failures”, as teachers of a foreign language have to switch from Russian to the native (Yakut) language of students. The students’ social background is analyzed. It is revealed that the vast majority (more than 80%) of students comes from a monolingual rural environment. According to the data of social and linguistic studies, there is a tendency of a decreasing level of the Russian language fluency among rural residents. As a result, the authors came to the conclusion that to prevent “communication failure” in the process of a foreign language teaching, it is necessary to apply not only to Russian, but also to the students’ native language.