Another Victory of Our Foreign Students

In mid-May 2014, the 1st Inter-University Contest in Russian as a Foreign Language has been held at Astrakhan State Technical University. As for Astrakhan State University, it was represented by a team of students of our Department of Preliminary Education of Foreign Citizens: Ahlam Fahreddin Mohamad (Syria), Cubayla Farah (Indonesia), and Masaaki Kojima (Japan), who are at the 1st year of their studies of Russian at ASU.

The participants were suggested tasks in Russian grammar and vocabulary, as well as several assignments related to a creative comprehension of a text they were to listen. Foreign students from Astrakhan’s three top higher educational institutions and a competent jury represented by Dr. Sannikova (ASU), Dr. Romero (the Technical University), and Dr. Glukhova (the Medical Academy) have been listening to monologues “My Impressions of Russia before Coming to Astrakhan and One Year Later” with great interest and attention.

It was Masaaki Kojima from Astrakhan State University who has won the Contest; he has surpassed his closest competitors by 5 points (31 points of 36); he has taken the first place. In his monologue, Masaaki remarked that he used to regard Russia as a cold country with “cold” people, but now he knows that our streets are not that dangerous and there are not so many drunk people outside, that Russian people really do not smile that often, but if they smile, it means they really like the person whom they are smiling and what that person is speaking or doing. Upon his graduation from ASU’s Department of Preliminary Education of Foreign Citizens, Masaaki Kojima is planning to continue his education at ASU’s Department of World Economy & Management; he is now studying the fundamentals of Economics in Russian.

As for our two other participants, Ahlam Fahreddin Mohamad and Cubayla Farah, they are going to join our master programs. They have gained the same scores - 26 points of 36, thus having shared the 4^th place.

All our three students who have taken part in the 1^st Inter-University Contest in Russian as a Foreign Language, explain their progress in mastering Russian not only with their wish to learn something new and to get a higher education in Russia afterwards, but also with the high quality of knowledge they get at Astrakhan State University, with warm-hearted treatment and care that the faculty of the Department of Preliminary Education of Foreign Citizens displays towards them.

Russian original information and photo source: the Department of Preliminary Education of Foreign Citizens of ASU

Translated by E.I. Glinchevskiy (the Center of Translation Studies & Conference Interpreting “ASTLINK” of ASU)