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Abstract: The article summarizes the experience of conducting interim assessment in the form of a colloquium in the Russian language for international students in technical fields studying Russian at the B2 level. The research is applied in nature. The article provides a review of the latest literature on the topic. The authors have analyzed the empirical experience of using colloquium tools over the past three years in groups of international technical students. The article raises the problem of insufficiency of generally accepted methodological tools for qualitative assessment of communicative competence and skills of productive types of oral speech in Russian among international engineering students at Russian universities completing major courses of study. It is convincingly proved that a colloquium at Russian as a foreign language classes at a technical university allows assessing a complex of discursive, sociocultural, communicative, and textual competences. The article analyzes the concept of “multifunctional text” as the basis for conducting colloquium and demonstrates the specificity of preparing texts of socio-cultural and popular-science orientation, based on the syntactic approach to their modeling. The study highlights the advantages of creating and using multifunctional texts in the practice with international students as an effective way of replenishing vocabulary on socio-cultural and popular-science topics, as well as consolidating constructions of the scientific style of speech, developing skills of using lexical means of a coherent text organization, and drawing up an outline. Examples of topics, algorithms for working with modeled multifunctional texts, and a model of the assessment event, including independent reading of the text, drawing up an outline (interrogative or nominative), a detailed retelling of the text based on active vocabulary, constructions of the scientific style, and lexical means of organizing coherent text are given. The article also describes the content of the final element of the colloquium: answers to additional questions on comprehension of the content of all details of the text and questions that stimulate international students to express their opinions, using facts from the read text, and to defend their own point of view, which is especially relevant at the B2 level. The study establishes the basic assessment criteria and convincingly shows that preliminary acquaintance of international students with the assessment methodology, and openness and transparency of scores contributes to reducing language and psychological anxiety, increasing motivation and developing objective self-assessment skills among students. Thus, the methodology of conducting a colloquium, the main stages of students’ work in their preparation for this form of control, and elements of the assessment system are revealed. As a result, the article proves the effectiveness of using colloquium as a format for interim assessment of Russian language proficiency at the B2 level for international students in technical fields.

About the author(s) :

Elena A. Vermenskaya

RUDN University (Moscow, Russian Federation)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4572-952X

Valeriya V. Ivanova

RUDN University (Moscow, Russian Federation)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2352-0351

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 06.08.2026; date of publication: 31.10.2026

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