Keyword: «non-native russian-speaking children»

The article addresses the problem of preparing student teachers for professional activity in a multicultural educational environment. The relevance of the study is determined by the cultural and linguistic heterogeneity of contemporary schools, the growth of academic mobility, the need for pedagogical support of children who are non-native speakers of Russian and international students, as well as by the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standards for Higher Education concerning the development of universal and professional competences in graduates of teacher training programmes. The aim of the article is to provide a theoretical justification for informal intercultural interaction as a factor in developing preservice teachers’ intercultural competence for work in a multicultural educational environment and to identify the organizational and didactic potential of international friendship clubs in pedagogical universities. The methodological basis of the study includes competency-based, activity-based, cultural and environmental approaches. The study clarifies the concept of an “international friendship club”; reveals the didactic potential of informal intercultural interaction in a pedagogical university; presents the results of monitoring the representation of international friendship clubs and similar associations in pedagogical universities in Russia; and identifies the main problems in organizing intercultural activities. The main results are presented in the form of an activity-based model of an international friendship club as a structurally organized, methodologically supported and regularly functioning platform for modelling educational and professional situations of intercultural interaction. The theoretical significance of the study lies in clarifying scholarly understanding of informal intercultural interaction as an event-based factor in the professional training of student teachers for work in a multicultural educational environment. The practical significance consists in the fact that the proposed activity-based model of informal intercultural interaction can be implemented in any university when designing an event-based format for preparing preservice teachers to work in multiethnic classrooms both in Russia and abroad.