Geocultural image of the county in the linguocultural aspect of teaching Russian as a foreign language

The study is devoted to the issue of forming the image of the country for teaching Russian as a foreign language. The idea of the geocultural image of a country is complex in structure and content, as it includes not only geophysical characteristics of the territory but also linguocultural features. Thus, the relevance of its description both in linguistic and linguodidactic aspects increases. The research presents the results of a questionnaire and associative experiment aimed at identifying the perceptions of Russia among Tunisian respondents. In the element of linguoculturology the peculiarities of forming perceptions of the geocultural image of the country are considered, and the linguistic means of reflecting the country’s image in the artistic text are highlighted. Attention is paid to the linguodidactic potential of geopoetic texts in teaching Russian as a foreign language at the advanced level, the peculiarities of working with concepts and culturally labelled vocabulary of these texts are described. The linguocultural approach allows foreign students to get acquainted with the Russian conceptosphereunderlying the geocultural image of the country and to form skills and abilities to work with vocabulary articles, interpret conceptual meanings, create their texts and generally build an intercultural dialogue. The proposed material can be used in the framework of teaching subjects of linguocultural and regional studies when teaching Russian as a foreign language at the advanced stage.