Russian lessons for foreigners: tools of artificial intelligence or the art of technology?

The relevance of the research lies in the necessity of including new technologies (in particular, generative artificial intelligence) in the process of language education in order to adapt students and teachers to new conditions of the information environment, to master new skills and abilities, to improve the quality of education. The highly productive value of generative artificial intelligence for teaching Russian as a foreign language at the level of professional education in higher education is emphasised. The aim of the research is to reveal the learning potential of generative artificial intelligence, which is achieved by applying the following methods: modelling of the learning process with the use of generative artificial intelligence; observation; generalisation of experience and forecasting of students’ achievements with regard to the development of linguistic and communicative competence, as well as flexible skills in academic and subsequent professional activities; linguodidactic analysis; descriptive method. The materials of the work have a pronounced practice-oriented character, as they represent a set of tasks and exercises, composed (performed) with the use of systems based on generative artificial intelligence (Gemini (Bard), Kandinsky, GPTchat (OpenAI), Perplexity, Shedevrum). The tasks are aimed at developing linguistic, communicative, professional, ICT-competences, as well as cognitive (analytical, generative and other) and creative abilities, and other flexible skills (Soft Skills) relevant for academic and further professional activities in the language being learnt (here - Russian as a foreign language). The limitations of generative artificial intelligence in terms of understanding the nuances of linguistic-cultural, social, emotional-psychological, stylistic context, which determines the role of the teacher in the learning process, are noted. We emphasise not so much mentoring, but rather cooperative-activity functions of the teacher, who simultaneously learns together with his students by accessing a resource that is gigantic in terms of information volume and technological capabilities, and directs, supervises, and corrects the activity of generative artificial intelligence and students. The prospects of the research are outlined, which imply the expansion of generative artificial intelligence technology possibilities in language education.