Implementation Features and Development Prospects in Distance Learning of Russian as a Foreign Language (RFL) at Pre-University Faculty

. The aim of this article is to describe the experience of e-learning of Russian as a Foreign Language (RFL) at the Pre-University Faculties based on the examples of three Russian educational organizations of higher education. The authors summarized the practical experience of Pre-University Faculties shift to e-learning in the period of the COVID-19 spread; the article also makes analysis of specific features characterizing this shift, describes the specifics of shifting the lessons into a digital mode and also examines the prospects of development of digital environment for the RFL Pre-University Faculty students. On the basis of the analysis, the authors describe the most common difficulties which faced both students and teachers. The results of this research show that distant learning became the only available instrument of the educational process functioning in the period of self-isolation when it was impossible to conduct face-to-face lessons. During the pandemic, the organization of the educational process, including studying at the Pre-University Faculty, became the new starting point for the development, promotion and prospects of e-learning technologies in the field of education. Abstract. The article contains the first results of online education of foreign students with various levels of competence in the Russian language (main-ly in conditions of the Russian educational environment). On the example of teaching non-native learners with a philological and non-philological focus in a new distant working mode caused by the pandemic, the defined pros and cons of education in a new educational reality are analyzed. Communicative and expressive powers of online and offline education in teaching Russian as a foreign language are viewed in this context.