Cognitive dissonance as a reason of failure in the study of Russian as a foreign language at engineering schools

This article is devoted to the problem of “cognitive dissonance” between the philologist who acts as a teacher and the foreign aspiring engineer. In order to clarify this problem due attention is given to the question of Russian mental culture with regards to “western” and “eastern” mentality, as well as to the question to what extent the knowledge of engineering terminology enables the student to communicate in Russian in a number of other situations. The article deals with the problem of “two cultures”: Those sectors and models of the language which can be applied to the realm of liberal arts are semantically and logically quite different from those sectors which are needed for efficient communication in the field of natural science. The author demonstrates that the study of engineering belongs to “western” rather than to "eastern" culture and differs from the latter in numerous points.

methods of teaching>, second language, Russian as a foreign language, the problem of “two cultures”, cognitive dissonance, engineering communication