On January 27, 2023, IITU experts became participants in the III International Scientific and Practical Conference "Linguistics of Distancing: The Power of Language and Modern Realities" in Moscow, and made a presentation on the topic "The Russian language as a tool for the socialization of migrant children in Kazakhstan". It is worth noting that this time the conference brought together a record number of participants - more than 1,000 people from 31 countries of the world.

In the report, language expert of IITU, Associate Professor of the Department of Languages Dinara Asylkhanovna Aliyeva spoke about how a joint project with Akelius and UNICEF is being implemented in the country to improve the literacy of children affected by migration processes.

“The article shows the experience of Kazakhstan, where the Russian language is a tool for social adaptation and socialization of migrant children. Teaching the Russian language makes it possible to introduce children to a new educational and social sphere for them. At the same time, the objective reality of the educational environment is a mixed format, i.e. combination of traditional and online resources,” the author of the report notes.

In her work, Dinara Asylkhanovna tells how to use the Akelius online application in the lessons of Russian as a foreign language in working with children. She shares her own experience of using this resource in Russian as a foreign language classes built within the framework of a communicative-activity approach. This method involves a diversion from the traditional study of grammar and immersion of students in the sphere of social and everyday communication.

“Learning a language with the Akelius app helps to solve imaginary or real tasks, such as: getting to know each other, talking about yourself, making friends, shopping, traveling, cooking, playing sports, etc. Grammar exercises are auxiliary, not main, especially at the initial stage of education. When planning a lesson, the emphasis is on the lexical topic, and the grammatical one is only “implied”,” Dinara Asylkhanovna explains.

In conclusion, the authors of the article provided a fragment of the lesson in Russian as a foreign language using the Akelius application.