Oriental Studies in a provincial university today: on the issue of teaching effectiveness

Sivkina Nataliya Yurievna Doctor of History Professor, Department of Ancient and Medieval History, N. I. Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod 603005, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanova str., 2 natalia-sivkina@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Grigorieva Svetlana Valerievna PhD in History Associate Professor, Department of Modern and Contemporary History, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod 603022, Russia, Nizhny Novgorod region, Nizhny Novgorod, Gagarin Avenue, 23 svetl-grigor@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Subject and relevance. The restructuring of the higher professional education system nowadays, due to the rejection of the Bologna system, which negatively affected the historically established traditions of universities ^[1], the actualization of national experience in training specialists with higher education, pose new tasks to the teaching staff of universities corresponding to the current moment, force them to revise curricula in humanitarian areas, the amount of hours, allocated to academic disciplines, adjust many courses in connection with the achievements of modern science and the challenges of the time. One of these directions is the reorientation of the Russian market and Russian foreign policy to the East. In this regard, the training of Oriental specialists, and indeed specialists who understand the modern realities of the development of the states of the Afro-Asian region, is of urgent importance.

In addition, under the conditions of sanctions and its own, "the potential of higher education should be fully used to consolidate society, preserve the unified socio-cultural space of the country, equality of cultures and faiths, overcome ethnocultural and social tensions, and form Russian self-awareness and self-identity" ^{[2, p. 37]}. Thus, the tasks facing the modern education system in Russia orient regional universities to expand ties with Asian countries and partner universities and, accordingly, to effectively train orientalist specialists.

Oriental studies at Nizhny Novgorod State University named after N.I. Lobachevsky has long-standing traditions ^{[3, 4, 5, 6]}. The purpose of this study is to summarize the existing experience of teaching Oriental disciplines in a provincial university and identify the components of the effectiveness of training Oriental specialists that can be used in the learning process by other universities.

The theoretical basis. This research is based on many years of experience of both domestic and foreign scientists in the field of innovative pedagogical technologies. The authors pay great attention to the problems of creating a motivating educational environment and theories of personal self-improvement. The works of E.P. Ilyin, M. V. Lyashenko, A.P. Kaitov and others are devoted to these problems, in particular. ^{[7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]}. Equally important for this study were the works presenting theories and practices in the field of "active" and "interactive" methods ^{[14, 15, 16, 17]}, because modern teaching is impossible without these technologies. It should be noted here that William H. Kilpatrick ^[18], whose ideas are still being applied today. A special group consists of studies devoted to the so-called "digital generation" and the peculiarities of teaching for it ^{[19, 20, 21, 22, 23]}. In addition, material was used to study different assessment systems ^{[24, 25]} in order to take advantage of these systems. Thus, the involvement of these works allowed the authors not only to develop their own methodology for teaching Oriental disciplines, the essence of which is the continuity, continuity and variability of the use of active and interactive teaching methods throughout the educational process by different teachers, but also to analyze the effectiveness of the methodology.

The novelty of the work lies in the analysis of the effectiveness of the author's methodology for teaching Oriental disciplines in a classical university, which can be used by teachers of humanities from other universities both in full-time and distance format.

The research methods were both traditional general philosophical methods of analysis and synthesis, as well as the method of systematization of materials, since the authors summarized the accumulated teaching experience, analyzed the effectiveness of the learning process in terms of assimilation of the material. In addition, observation methods were used to obtain student reflection, survey, and methods of working with statistical data.

Results. Undoubtedly, specialist training is a complex system of educational and educational activities, which includes a whole range of components. Moreover, one of the most urgent issues in modern times remains the question of the quality of such training and, accordingly, the search and implementation of effective teaching methods ^{[26, 27, 28]}, taking into account not only the age, but also the psychological characteristics of children of generation Z ^{[19, 20, 21, 22]}.

The teaching of Oriental disciplines has some peculiarities: the volume of courses on the history of Asian and African countries from ancient times to the present is quite significant, it is studied for 1-4 courses, modules are read by different teachers who choose at their own discretion which topics will be understood in the audience, which ones on their own. The educational material involves the development of a significant array of completely new information for students, since the history of the East is given an insignificant place in the school curriculum, an abundance of poorly remembered names, geographical names and terms, which makes it difficult for students to form a holistic picture of the history of the states of the region from antiquity to the present day (an intellectual skill that historical disciplines should develop ^{[29, p. 53]}), leads to fragmentation and superficiality of knowledge, a decrease in interest in the studied disciplines. In an effort to overcome such problems, UNN teachers have developed and actively use their own (or author's) methodology based on continuity in teaching courses and interdisciplinary interaction ^[16]. Using it for several years, the authors have identified the main components of its effectiveness.

Firstly, it is a motivational component. Teachers have been talking for many years about what needs to interest the student as a result of learning, to make this process exciting and productive, taking into account personal interests, level of training and capabilities of students ^{[7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]}. And here the choice of teaching methods, the use of active and interactive forms of work plays an important role. Teachers of Oriental studies at UNN use role-playing and business games, debates and discussions, project and case methods to improve the effectiveness of teaching ^{[15, 16]}.

Particular importance is attached to the formation of historical thinking, which is understood as "the ability to analytically compare versions and assessments of historical facts, behavioral actions of individuals and integral groups, readiness for reasoned defense of their ideas and positions" ^{[26, p. 134]}. Such thinking develops through the use of a wide range of methods of working with texts (reflexive reading technique, Insert strategy, use of various tables and summaries, etc.). The inconsistency of historical sources, their problematic nature and ambiguity contribute to the development of skills of critical analysis of texts, make students think, come to their own conclusions, justify and defend the correctness of their own in front of the audience judgments, that is, to form those competencies that are assigned to Oriental disciplines in the competence matrix.

For example, in the course "Russia-East: features of intercivilizational interaction", when studying the history of Russian-Chinese relations, second-year students of the History course are offered the case "N. Spafaria's Embassy to China", when working with which students need to identify and justify the reasons for the embassy's failure. At the same time, the lesson develops such universal and general professional competencies as the ability to perceive the intercultural diversity of society in socio-historical, ethical and philosophical contexts; the ability to carry out social interaction and realize one's role in a team; to carry out business communication orally in the official language of the Russian Federation; the ability to select, critically analyze and interpret historical sources, historical facts, historical information; analyze and meaningfully explain historical phenomena and processes in their economic, social, political and cultural dimensions.

The variety of material presented in the case is by nature (both sources and fragments of scientific articles and monographs), genres (articles, interviews, monographs, Wikipedia, diaries), by the time of the description of events (the case includes information about the events of the XVII century. and about the worldview of modern Chinese) is designed to teach students to understand the flow of available material, to separate sources from historiography, dubious information from the truthful; to make their assumptions based on facts and available knowledge; to defend and defend their point of view both in their subgroup and in front of the entire audience.

Such a voluminous block of tasks is realized due to the fact that in the first year students have already practiced many techniques of working with texts, are familiar with the peculiarities of studying documents of different genres, have teamwork skills, etc. In addition, students have the opportunity to rely on their knowledge from other disciplines, which increases the degree and quality of processing the information received. The data of student reflection on such classes allow us to assert that emotional satisfaction with one's own work and the assessment received is quite high (Fig.1). The class was attended by 26 people working in three teams of 9, 8 and 9 people, respectively. At the end of the lesson, the students answered the question about their emotional state, the teacher noted the number of actively working and passively involved in the lesson independently.

Fig.1. Analysis of the teamwork of the 2nd course on the topic "N. Spafaria's Embassy to China".

In all teams, the number of actively working students is higher than those who prefer to remain silent (in the second team, their ratio is equal). At the same time, three quarters of each team are satisfied with the lesson, even those who did not speak or showed little in the discussion. In other words, the form of the seminar, the comfort of the atmosphere of the lesson and teamwork have a positive effect on the attitude of students to the subject of study. The passivity of some students is explained not only by poor preparation for the topic, but also by objective reasons (health condition, shyness). Thus, motivation is a necessary component of the effectiveness of classes, but no less important is student reflection, which directly shows the level of motivation of students and should be constantly carried out in the teaching process.

The second important component of effectiveness, which was mentioned a little above, is the continuity of courses and teaching methods ^[16]. It allows to overcome fragmentation in historical knowledge and skills, develops group and inter-course interaction of students, promotes their personal growth, forms skills of self-education and self-organization. Teachers of Oriental studies, thanks to this component, have the opportunity to carry out close interdisciplinary interaction, complicate the course material and teaching methods used from course to course, and correct the educational material depending on the interests of the student audience.

It is interesting, in this perspective, to compare the grades received by students of 1-3 courses in Oriental studies. The survey was conducted in March 2023 and was attended by 32 first-year students, 19 second-year students and 23 third-year students (78 people in total). To the question: "What grade did you receive in Oriental studies in the last semester", the votes were distributed as follows (Fig. 2):

Fig.2. Analysis of grades of 1-3 courses for the last semester in Oriental studies (March 2023).

As can be seen from the diagram, the total number of students who received "excellent" grades is decreasing, but the percentage of students with "good" and "excellent" grades remains. The decrease in excellent grades is explained by the complexity and increase in the volume of material from course to course, as well as objective factors. But the high level of "good" grades indicates the preservation of motivation for learning and confirms not only the reasonable application of the succession methodology, but also its effectiveness.

The third important point is the educational and methodological support of the educational process. In the modern world, when knowledge is rapidly becoming obsolete, it becomes an important task for a future specialist to develop a constant need for self-development and self-improvement. To do this, it is necessary to teach the student to find the necessary information, process and analyze it promptly, and apply the knowledge gained in practical activities. Therefore, the student's independent work is of particular importance. In order to make this independent work more productive, to develop the necessary competencies, a set of educational materials is needed – textbooks, anthologies, collections of documents, etc.

Currently, students have wide access to information through various online resources and platforms, the Internet, the library, and they have access to courses on the Moodle platform. However, the question of new high-quality textbooks remains open. New textbooks should combine the concrete historical material underlying historical science and new data from modern historiography ^{[30, p. 115]}. Unfortunately, textbooks in the libraries of regional universities are usually old, and sometimes outdated. New editions that could be recommended for preparation have their drawbacks.

In particular, for example, the last generation of textbooks on the new and modern history of the countries of the East, published in the 2000s. (A new history of Asian and African countries. XVI–XIX centuries. in 3 parts. A.M. Rodriguez, M.: VLADOS, 2004) managed to overcome the excessive ideologization and stamps of Soviet educational literature, contains much more information, the material is based on the regional principle, which is logical and reasonable, more attention is paid to terminology and personalities, which are highlighted in special fonts, issues of the history of public thought, culture and art, problems of modernization and reformation of the Eastern states. The textbooks were written by leading specialists of the Moscow State Pedagogical University under the guidance of the Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of New and Modern History, M. Rodriguez.

The authors tried to use new approaches to the study of the material, in particular, unlike their predecessors, they dated the New Time in a new way, considering "as a boundary between the Middle Ages and Modern Times" the era of Great Geographical Discoveries, since "these discoveries radically changed not only geographical, but also economic, social, political the picture of the world" (p. 5-6), and the beginning of Modern times - the turn of the XIX–XX centuries, since it was during this period that the formation of monopolistic capitalism began in the West, and in the East their own capitalist relations developed, new classes and groups of society appeared, the bourgeois revolutionary movement and bourgeois revolutions arose, which became the prologue to the collapse of the colonial systems (p. 6).

However, in our opinion, with all the positive aspects of the new textbooks, they are far from ideal and require improvement: they are not illustrated, they lack maps (geographical, demographic, political). For modern students who are poorly oriented in geographical space, maps would allow them to better imagine the events taking place (especially when it comes to colonial seizures and partitions, increments and losses of territories, etc.). In addition, the reference apparatus of textbooks is virtually absent. There are no chronological tables that would allow to systematize the available information; alphabetical and geographical indexes; glossary, which is very important for mastering the course of Oriental studies, since students are faced with a large array of hard-to-remember names, surnames, geographical names, terms, etc. Textbooks do not contain a list of recommended sources and literature that would allow interested students to navigate the huge flow of information, would facilitate the work of university teachers in mastering and teaching the course. It is sad that the authors did not take into account the experience of their predecessors, who, along with the textbook, produced a textbook or a workshop that allowed them to comprehend the past of eastern states in more depth and in detail using the example of specific historical sources that are not available in provincial universities. This significantly reduces the interest of modern students in Oriental studies, slows down their research work in this direction.

The shortcomings of textbooks, their moral aging, the need to improve training courses and programs lead to the emergence of alternative educational literature (for example, Safronov B. V. New History of Asian and African countries: a textbook for universities / B. V. Safronov, Yu. I. Losev. M.: Yurayt Publishing House, 2023; Vasiliev L. S. History of Asian and African countries. The Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: a textbook for universities. Moscow: Yurayt Publishing House, 2023). And they also force UNN teachers to create their own author's teaching aids (as an example: Grigorieva S.V., Sivkina N.Yu. Monuments of architecture of the East. In two parts. A study guide. Nizhny Novgorod: UNN Publishing House. 2019; Grigorieva S.V. The history of Japan in Modern times: documents and materials. Educational and methodical manual Nizhny Novgorod: Publishing House of UNN. 2023. 55 p.; Grigorieva S.V. History of India in Modern times: documents and materials. Educational and methodical manual. Nizhny Novgorod: UNN Publishing House. 2023. 58 p.; Grigorieva S.V. History of Asian and African countries in modern times: An educational and methodological guide: Nizhny Novgorod: Nizhny Novgorod State University, 2017. 27 p.), which contain not only the basics of scientific knowledge on the subject, but also documents and materials translated into Russian, questions and assignments for texts, didactic recommendations, which allows you to solve not only information tasks, but also to implement the functions of consolidation and control, coordination, organization intra- and inter-subject relations, to organize individual work of students.

The fourth point is the constant monitoring of academic performance, diagnosis and correction of the educational process. UNN teachers try to build feedback with students in the most comfortable conditions, which implies constant systematic monitoring of the assimilation of educational material by each student throughout the entire learning process, which ensures the strength of the assimilation of the material and relieves the state of tense expectation ("they will ask – they will not ask"); providing students with the opportunity to choose forms and methods of control, the time of delivery of a certain educational material in accordance with the cognitive abilities of students; friendly attitude of teachers to each student, maximum attention, demonstration of willingness to listen.

Feedback is also provided in the classroom during lectures, seminars, colloquiums, consultations with students, etc., as well as in absentia in the form of correspondence through the UNN portal. In the course of constant interaction between students and teachers, there is also a corrective current diagnosis, which allows students to be informed in a timely manner about their level of academic performance and, thus, adjust the educational process and professional development of students ^{[31, p. 327]}. And a positive approach allows you not to reduce the motivational component.

In addition, teachers of Oriental studies at UNN actively use a variety of forms and methods of mutual control, which significantly reduces the state of tension and stiffness in the verification process. In particular, when studying the course of modern history of Asian and African countries in the third year, a lesson on the culture of Japan of the Tokugawa era "Fair of Japanese customs" is held. Students are invited to bring and briefly present an item of Japanese everyday life of the Edo era. The following criteria are applied to performances: the quality of the custom itself, its correspondence to the epoch, the depth and originality of the information presented about the subject, the ability to meet the regulations. At the same time, students themselves are given the opportunity to mark the best performances and justify their choice. Based on the characteristics expressed by the students, the final grade for the lesson is given.

Mutual assessment when conducting classes in an interactive form is much more effective than traditional assessment. In this form, it is very important to clearly formulate the criteria. For example, when evaluating the oral part, the presence of a greeting, the strength of the voice, correct and literate speech, etc. are noted. In junior courses, students work in teams and, evaluating rivals, have the opportunity to first discuss in their group what they liked, what was missed, then the selected representatives voice a common opinion. In senior years, students do this work individually. In addition, this form forces students to be more attentive in the classroom and promotes the development of communication skills.

Since the positive assessment of students' knowledge and skills largely affects the effectiveness of teaching, according to personal experience, teachers of Oriental disciplines prefer a point-rating system. It allows students to distribute their forces, have the opportunity to increase their score by completing mandatory and additional tasks, avoid psychological problems associated with the subjectivity of the classical assessment system and increase motivation to study ^{[24, 25]}. In general, the point-rating system, which allows students to demonstrate personal achievements, feel their importance and assert themselves, sets students up for a positive attitude towards the subject.

Conclusions. The active cooperation of teachers of Oriental studies at UNN has its positive results. Firstly, the interaction of teaching staff makes it possible to subordinate the educational process to common learning goals and objectives, take into account the age and psychological and pedagogical characteristics of students, and form universal and general professional competencies at different levels. Secondly, the methodology of teaching Oriental disciplines developed by UNN teachers, which assumes four components: motivation; continuity of courses and the development of interdisciplinary connections; high-quality educational and methodological support for the educational process; monitoring and diagnosing academic performance, ensures good student performance, high motivation, the formation of a holistic picture of the history of Asian and African countries from antiquity to the present, preserves students' interest in the region throughout the entire period of study. Thirdly, the joint work of teachers promotes constructive cooperation, the exchange of teaching experience, joint scientific developments and their use in the educational process, which can be successfully demanded in the organization of the educational process in other universities.