IMAGE OF RUSSIA IN BRITISH TEXTBOOKS IN ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE FOR RUSSIAN STUDENTS

English is taught in all secondary and language schools in Russia. There are many textbooks in English published in Russia or abroad and thus, teachers face many difficulties in choosing textbooks for their lessons. No doubt that students are influenced by the materials of a textbook, that’s why the image of the native country created by the textbook should be taken into account when choosing a textbook in a foreign language. Textbooks in English may create a positive or a negative image of Russia. This research is based on content analysis of an English textbook for Russian learners New Opportunities Russian Edition, published by the British publishing house Pearson Longman. The authors of this textbook are British and Russian experts. During the analysis of the texts included in the textbook we found 17 contexts that refer to Russia (from simple sentences to long texts). Most of the contexts give positive evaluation of our country, its literature, science, music and cinema. Neutral evaluation is found in the tasks that ask to compare realia of different cultures. Negative evaluation of Russian phenomena was not found. Moreover we analyzed the international version of New Opportunities and found out that it has no texts about Russia, it only mentions the Russian writer L. Tolstoy in one of the exercises. In conclusion we may say that the Russian Edition of New Opportunities presents a positive image of Russia, it broadens background knowledge of students and gives them information about the native country. The image of Russia is positive — it is presented as a country of talented people and beautiful places. Исследование выполнено при финансовой поддержке РФФИ, научный проект No 19-013-00895 «Учимся понимать Россию: когнитивные стратегии формирования методического материала по русскому языку как