Non-native speech

More and more children are studying in Moscow schools who do not speak Russian.

“Are there many non-Russians in the class?” - parents of Moscow schoolchildren ask each other. This question is only partly related to xenophobia. Adults are worried that their child will not be able to study normally and with pleasure if half the class speaks Russian poorly. Or doesn't speak at all.

According to expert estimates, the number of migrants in Moscow ranges from 1 to 3 million people. Officially, from January 15 to August 31, 2007, according to the Moscow Department of Education, 1,080,185 people were registered. The non-Russian population of the capital exceeded the 15 percent mark.

It’s unclear how many migrant children study in Moscow schools, no matter how crazy it sounds. There are no uniform statistics for children. When enrolling in a school, registration of a child in Moscow is not officially required; one of the parents must be registered. Since migrants, as a rule, have more than one child, we can only roughly say: more than 100 thousand such children study in Moscow schools. You can imagine the dynamics if you look at the data from the Department of Education for the 2004-2005 academic year. That year, the number of students - children of migrants from Armenia increased by 7%, from Vietnam - by 382.5%, from Kazakhstan - by 119%, from Kyrgyzstan - by 478%, from Moldova - by 70.5 %. The number of Turkmen children increased by 93%, and the number of Uzbek children by 185%.

Since September 1, 2006, Russian language schools have been operating in Moscow, where children learn to understand, speak and read Russian during the school year. These schools are structural divisions within ordinary Moscow schools; the main subject in them is the Russian language, taught according to the “Russian as a Foreign Language” method. Russian language schools do not replace secondary school education, but prepare for it. At the end of the school year, the child takes a Russian language test.

Each Russian language school is designed for approximately 60 people. There are ten such schools in Moscow, on average one per district. There are two such schools in the South-Eastern district, and none in the South-Western district.

I met with Olga Kalenkova , head of the laboratory of methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language at the school of the Department of International Education of the Moscow Institute of Open Education, and Tatyana Feoktistova , methodologist of Russian language schools, associate professor, head of the Russian language department of the Moscow Higher Military Command School.

- Why are there so few of these schools in Moscow?

Olga Kalenkova. Even they don't fill up. There are currently eight children at the Central District school. When we were developing the idea of ​​Russian language schools, we thought that such a school could not accommodate more than 60 children: this is not a separate educational institution, but a structural subdivision of an ordinary Moscow school. But no sixty are reached even in the districts where many migrants from the CIS countries traditionally live: South-East, South, East. Last year, 30-40 people studied in our schools in these districts, and that’s still good...

Tatiana Feoktistova. We went and collected children from all over the area, hung up advertisements, even went to markets and explained: they say, there are such schools, we will teach your children the Russian language, then it will be easier for them to live in Moscow. But in principle, they still didn’t know about these schools, they still don’t know, there is no advertising.

OK. In addition, many parents believe that if their child can barely string two words together in Russian, let him go to a regular school. At the same time, the parents themselves speak very bad Russian...

T.F. If they talk at all. It happens that children speak Russian better than their parents, and then it is very difficult to explain why it is necessary to send the child to a Russian language school for a whole year.

— Does it happen that children don’t speak Russian at all?

T.F. Certainly. We had a boy who was “requested” from the first grade of an ordinary Moscow school: he understood absolutely nothing. He studied with us for a year and went to a normal school, though again to first grade, but that’s what his parents wanted.

— What, a year is enough for a child who doesn’t speak Russian to not only speak, but also be able to go to school, for example, grade six or seven?

T.F. The method of teaching “Russian as a foreign language” has been around for several decades, so, of course, a year is enough. Another thing is that our children do not come on September 1, like Muscovites, but throughout the entire school year. Last year, an Albanian boy came to our school on Baumanskaya (a school in the Central District - M.D.) in January, and he did not have enough of the third and fourth quarters to take the entire amount of material. So he stayed with us “for the second year,” but with the written consent of his parents, of course.

Today I came to school on Baumanskaya and saw boys from India who studied with us last year and are now in the seventh grade of a regular school. I ask: “Well, how?” - “It’s difficult!” - “But it’s possible!” - “Yes.”

— What if the child is 12 years old and not only doesn’t understand Russian, but has never even seen the multiplication table?

T.F. In our Russian language schools, children are taught other optional subjects: mathematics, computer science... They have labor and physical education. At the end of the school year, the child takes tests in the main subjects that he will have in his future class. Depending on the results of these tests, children enter Moscow schools. We try to choose a class for everyone that is suitable for both age and level of knowledge. While there are few children, this is possible.

“But I still don’t understand why there are so few children?” Moscow schools are overcrowded with migrant children, and in Russian language schools there are 30 people per district? It's just a drop in the ocean...

OK. I believe the point is this: the emergence of Russian language schools practically coincided with the introduction of per capita funding for schools: now the money goes not to the school in general, but to each individual child. If this were not the case, then schools would part with such children easily and simply, and there would not even be a need to particularly advertise Russian language schools: school directors themselves would send there children who do not speak or speak Russian poorly. Because everyone understands: the presence of such children in the classroom means a general decline in academic performance, confusion and great difficulties for teachers. I'm not even talking about the various phobias that arise among Muscovites whose children study with the children of migrants. But money decides everything these days; every child brings “his own bag of money” to school. And if we also take into account the demographic gaps, we still have a shortage everywhere. So every child has a trail of all kinds of amenities for school, regardless of whether it is Farkhadik or Vanechka. And it is almost impossible to force the director to give up such a child.

T.F. We are not talking about directors of elite schools or, especially, gymnasiums. We are talking about the most ordinary, secondary Moscow schools. Elite schools, as a rule, are attended by children of wealthy parents who can compensate for all possible losses.

OK. But in ordinary schools, excuse me, even without any Farkhadiks, the level of children’s culture leaves much to be desired and the level of academic performance too. So this Farhadik or this Mariam will not make a difference...

Teachers complain to us that schools are dominated by such children that it is impossible to work. I go to the district for a meeting and ask the school principals: “Where are your children? Why do we only have eight people?” - “But everything is fine with us, there are no such children, we can cope!” I object: they say, your teachers are complaining. And they answered me: “What kind of teachers? From which schools? What are the last names? Naturally, I don’t name it.

This is a mystery to me. These are the areas where migrants gather, these are our schools. And we can't recruit children! Everyone was shoved into regular schools! And everything is fine with them! Of course, I could come to these schools with testing in the Russian language to actually see how “everything is in order” with them. But I guarantee that “my” children will not be at school that day.

T.F. These children, as a rule, have a very low level of culture and an almost complete lack of knowledge. Today a 14-year-old Vietnamese boy came to us, we asked him: “Do you know what country you live in?” He doesn't know. You ask a seven-year-old: “What Russian holidays do you know?” - “When they get married.” For him, the most beautiful place in Moscow is McDonald's... Our Russian language schools are also cultural centers for such children; we accustom children to school life. After all, many of them don’t even know how to behave in class and don’t distinguish a lesson from a break. For example, they don’t know that they need to raise their hand and ask to go to the toilet, they can’t speak Russian - so they just get up and go out. Or he got tired of sitting - he also got up and walked.

Here they are taught to engage in collective activities, to work together, they take part in all school competitions and go on excursions.

OK. And in ordinary schools they take these children, put them in the back desk - and the children there become sour, not understanding anything. Then they get C grades - and they leave school with certificates. That’s what’s scary, that’s what you need to be afraid of, not our Russian language schools! And those whom we take and teach will speak Russian, will fit into Moscow life normally, and will adapt normally.

- What if there are many children in the class who speak Russian poorly, much more than there are in the back desks? What should a teacher do?

OK. If it is not possible to persuade parents to send their children to Russian language schools, then you can, for example, go to study the methodology of teaching “Russian as a foreign language” in advanced training courses. At the Moscow Institute of Open Education, at the Department of International Education, there are such courses: they can be short-term, and you can get a second higher education. Primary school teachers, language specialists, foreign language teachers, and speech therapists come to us. Today in Moscow, teachers need such a methodology like air. Educational and methodological sets have been published: a book for students, a book for teachers, and they are written for inexperienced people. The problem is when one child in the class only has “walking” cases, while the other cannot connect even two words in Russian. It turns out that everyone needs to be dealt with individually, but no one will finance such classes. And in Russian language schools it is possible to unite children into groups of approximately equal levels.

Big plans, big money

In 2005, the Moscow government adopted a city target program “Multinational Moscow: the formation of civil solidarity, a culture of peace and harmony,” an action program designed until 2007. One of the reasons why the city is concerned about this problem is the data of sociologists: in 2005, at the time the program was adopted, in Moscow “the prevalence of negative ethnic contact attitudes reached 47%.” That is, approximately half of Muscovites, to put it mildly, do not like migrants.

256 million 207 thousand rubles are allocated to combat negativity. (in 2005 prices), including from the city budget - 192 million 092 thousand rubles. The Moscow authorities assume that with this money in three years they will be able to - I quote - “reduce the prevalence of negative ethnic contact attitudes in the Moscow community to 35%.” Among other goals of the program, of course, is “the formation of a spiritual and moral atmosphere of respect for human rights, intransigence towards manifestations of racism, xenophobia and extremism on ethnic and religious grounds”, “the establishment in the public consciousness of Moscow residents of the values ​​of humanism that meet the traditions of solidarity and interethnic harmony.”

The list of events with the help of which the values ​​of humanism should be established in our consciousness is huge and accessible to the general public, and is posted on the website of the Moscow government. Money is mastered deeply and creatively. Here you will find “a study of the legal aspects of interethnic relations”, and “preparing instructions on issues of working among migrants”, and holding “round tables” (990 thousand rubles over three years), and “developing a mechanism for the formation of civil solidarity, a culture of peace and harmony in the metropolitan metropolis" (only 500 thousand were allocated for this item).

According to the program, a lot of money is spent on sociological research, on brainstorming, on writing instructions, on thinking through mechanisms. The system works and does not puff, mastering and digesting the allocated money.

They will form civil solidarity by holding the festival of national cultures “Round Dance of Friendship” and the festival of national arts “Beauty will save the world”, celebrating Sabantuy and Navruz. An excellent event is “the development of new tourist routes “Multi-confessional Moscow” and “Multinational Moscow” for foreign and Russian tourists” (I wonder where this is? In Golyanovo? To Danilovsky or Izmailovsky market?) There is also a luxurious idea of ​​holding “days of interethnic solidarity residents of administrative districts of Moscow." 3 million 970 thousand rubles are allocated for these “Days”.

Of course, after such a flurry of events, after such a brainstorming session, xenophobia in Moscow cannot help but decline. I just have to go. She simply has nowhere to go.

The creation of Russian language schools is also included in the action plan. And they are created. True, the actual organizational aspects have not been fully thought out, there is not even a complete set of instructions, and therefore head teachers and directors beg for money not in the center, but in the districts, knocking on doorsteps, again and again proving, explaining, justifying funding for their methodologists-teachers .

And what are they, some kind of rates for teachers, what a bore, no scope. This is not “preparing publications on ethnocultural topics” for 2 million 076 thousand rubles. and not “posting research materials and recommendations on the website” - 825 thousand were allocated for this work. But for “organization and replenishment (this is especially wonderful replenishment -- M.D. ) district permanent exhibitions dedicated to the history and culture of different peoples” give 10 million 920 thousand rubles. What teachers, I beg you... We have no time for children, even if they don’t speak Russian. It’s okay, we’ll learn somehow, we don’t live in the forest. Our tasks are much more significant. We “create an atmosphere of respect for human rights.”

"They cannot be expelled from school"

— Why is there no instruction not to admit children who do not know Russian to school? - I asked a question at the Moscow Department of Education.

“Because there is no law allowing this,” they answered me. And they explained: all our children have the right to secondary education. A child who is under 15 years old today can be expelled from school only in exceptional and, as a rule, criminal cases, and even then the child will have to study in a colony. Ignorance of the Russian language is not a crime. Such a child can be retained for a second year for poor academic performance. And Russian language schools are free and voluntary. If you want, study. If you don't want to, we have no right to force you. Everything is decided by parents or persons replacing them.

And parents decide to send their children to regular schools, and the schools can’t do anything - or don’t want to? - what to do about it. One friend said: “There were two such boys in our class. They didn't understand a word of Russian. And then their mother began to sit with them in class, translating the teacher’s words to her sons in a low voice. At the same time, mother herself, it seems, did not realize that in the Russian language nouns are declined according to cases, and verbs can be feminine..."

Several years ago there was a story in Moscow when schools did not want to admit migrant children, citing instructions from the authorities. There was an uproar, the situation was dealt with, and the children began to study. Today, after reading the official materials on the website of the Moscow Department of Education, you can be convinced that if the parents do not have a residence permit, but only temporary registration, your child will be accepted into school, “of course. And when the registration ends, you will renew it, and the child will continue to study.” In addition, Moscow schools accept children who are not Russian citizens, but whose parents “have refugee or forced migrant status and are registered. There can be no talk about refusing to accept these children.”

Just as there can be no talk about any testing in the Russian language when entering school. All interviews of this kind are prohibited.

Let me make a reservation: the official ban on testing does not mean that it is not carried out both here and there. It’s just that any school has the official right to turn a blind eye to the fact that a child does not speak or understand Russian. It's a question of price.

"They respect teachers"

It's not just about money.

It is difficult to teach migrant children in Moscow schools without special training, but - and this is confirmed by many teachers - it is easier to work with them. They are more manageable than Muscovites.

Olga Kalenkova says:

- Our children are very amenable to education, they can be dealt with, they still have fear in their eyes - in a good way, of course. For our children, the word “teacher” means a lot; they are both afraid of teachers and respect them very much. They see in the teacher a person who can decide their fate, who must be obeyed unconditionally, and on whom their future depends.

Tatyana Feoktistova :

— An Afghan boy studied with us. In Afghanistan, a teacher has the right to beat children, and beat them brutally. It is clear that no one lays a finger on them, and they very quickly understand that they have found themselves in different conditions, in a different civilization. But unconditional respect for the teacher and attention to his every word is inherent in them initially, genetically.

OK. When Afghans studied with us, they all tried to kiss my hands. I entered the class, raising my hands up: hello, children, how glad I am to see you! Gradually weaned. Moscow children have long been thinking about teachers for a long time, for them the teacher is a lumpen, and in salaries, and in social status. Many teachers confirm that the children of migrants, as a rule, do not be rude, they are more disciplined. Another thing is temperament: if he does not run and does not scream, he will just die, burst! But this is nothing, not scary. You can tolerate.

T.F. Children are open, catch your every word, happily make contact, endlessly arrange some “treats” and love to speak very much: they sing, dance. I will keep it without it.

OK . They are very attached to their class-I'm talking about the office-they relate to it as a house, value them, arrange, put flowers ... Why? Most of them have very bad living conditions. They live in some rented houses, rooms somewhere outside the city, they have to go to school from afar. And if they live in Moscow, they rent one apartment for several families. And children have a huge deficiency of feeling at home, comfort. For example, our girls are thirteen years old, without asking the teacher, on their own initiative took the curtains in the classroom and washed them away. Can you imagine that Muscovites have done this? The same thing with Muscovites is the same: "And whose mother can?" - “Mine cannot ... mine is busy ...” We live normally. And these themselves will behed, remove, push, correct. They live hard, our children. Like spring - boys go to the market, help. The girls are always busy with the housework, take care of the younger brothers and sisters: as a rule, mother often gives birth, and she has health problems, she can’t do anything. She is only carried around hospitals. Moreover, older children who can connect two words in Russian, because mother-wrapped to the very eyes and always pregnant-does not speak Russian at all ...

- Is this a typical picture?

Olga Kalenkova. Absolutely typical. It is known that migrants from the CIS countries arriving in Moscow initially and traditionally agree to become cheap labor, to take the lowest places on the social ladder. Migrants have different demographic behavior: over the past ten years, the number of children born to the Nemoskvichs has grown almost five times, today it is every seventh child. “Days of interethnic solidarity of the inhabitants of the administrative districts of Moscow” is, of course, a great thing, and my respect for someone who was so luxurious to master almost 4 million rubles, but there are more and more children in Moscow, and do more and more in Moscow The view that schools cope are becoming more and more difficult.

Although for now, of course, the thunder has not struck. These children are still sour on the rear desks under the supervision of teachers.

Maria Dubnova