ASSESSING MULTILINGUAL COMPETENCE BASING ON HOLISTIC APPROACH

According to the census of 2010, Republic of Tatarstan is inhabited by the representatives of 115 ethnic groups. Among them are Tatar (53,2%), Russian (39,7%) and other nationalities like Udmurt, Mordva, Mari, etc. Taking into account the Republic’s linguistic diversity, modern tendencies and language education policy, the national programme «Preserving, studying and developing state languages of the Republic of Tatarstan and other languages in the Republic of Tatarstan in 20142020» was adopted. Basing on the above mentioned programme Kazan Federal University has started the project of multilingual education of gifted children. The project is aimed at developing the national identity, enhancing multilingual interactions and preserving the national legacy of people inhabiting Tatarstan. The lessons were structured according to the multilingual approach that the authors considered crucial in terms of the research. The process of distant learning for schoolchildren of 8-9 grades and 10-11 grades in 11 rural schools of Tatarstan is organized via the Internet. The modules studied are: “Advanced learning of Tatar, Russian and English”, “Content-based instruction through English”, “Advanced learning of Tatar art and culture”. Using multilingual approach, the authors faced the problem of assessing the level of multilingual (Russian-Tatar-English) competence. Existing language tests are monolingual as they assess only one-language competence. One of the aims of the following research was to develop tests suitable for assessing students’ multilingual competence basing on FREPA (Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches to Languages and Cultures) holistic approach. The following approach states that in order to answer the questions given in one language a child can use the language of cognition or any other language that he/she considers appropriate in the following situation. The following pluralistic approach to teaching and learning cultures and languages refers to pedagogical approaches which involve more than one language and culture into teaching, learning and assessing. At the same time the so-called “singular” didactic approaches consider only one culture or a particular language in isolation. To assess the level of schoolchildren multilingual competence, testing materials for the first module were developed in Tatar, Russian and English. FREPA descriptors were used as the basis for tests development. It is planned to use the following materials to assess the progress of 25 schoolchildren of the 8-9th grades.