Elena Kirillina

The problem of learning and acquiring good command of foreign languages by students of non-linguistic universities has many aspects of consideration and new approaches, but it has not been fully researched. One of these approaches is related to the national mentality of students. The relevance of this study lies in the fact that the relationship between mentality and language from a scientific point of view is investigated recently. Despite the available research works in this area, this issue has not yet been sufficiently studied. Hence it can be concluded that the mentality and learning foreign languages are interrelated and require further research. The aim of this work is to study the influence of national mentality on learning a foreign language by students of non-linguistic universities (on the example of the mentality of the Sakha people). Leading approaches to achieve the objectives of the study are: linguistic-cultural approach that will help to determine the influence of living national language, material and spiritual culture on language processes; process approach, determining the whole complex of continuously running mental processes in foreign language learning for simulation of the activity results; situational approach, identifying the opportunity to improve learning of a foreign language, taking into account the influence of the student’s national mentality. The study will result in determining the level of the national mentality influence on a foreign language learning. The national-specific features of the mentality of Yakut and English linguistic and cultural communities representatives will be revealed and the ways of their influence on the process of teaching a foreign language will be determined. The comparative analysis of Yakut and English national mentality features (national character, socionic types and concept spheres of Yakut and English languages) contributes to the development of a foreign language teaching model, taking into account the peculiarities of students’ mentality in order to overcome their difficulties in learning a foreign language. Our proposed approach to determining the influence of national mentality on foreign language learning by students of non-linguistic universities will provide an opportunity to develop a model of effective foreign language teaching, taking into account the peculiarities of the national mentality, namely the mentality of the Sakha people.