NARRATIVE TEXTS IN THE TEACHING BULGARIAN TO FOREIGN STUDENTS AS A POSSIBILITY TO DEVELOP THE INTERCULTURAL AWARENESS AND COMPETENCE

The main purpose of foreign university students during studying Bulgarian is reaching a level of communicative abilities, i.e. using the language successfully in different settings and situations. Achieving this purpose requires the use of effective teaching methods and teaching techniques which rely not only on the language skills of the university students, but also on their general knowledge of the world and knowledge in the area of human interactions.This article explores the possibility to include narrative texts from the modern Bulgarian literature in the teaching process as a tool to educate the students during the early stage of studying Bulgarian. Meeting certain narrative texts or abstracts from different genres is what helps the students feel emotionally and socially closer to the Bulgarian language. This creates a specific emotional atmosphere during improving one's skills in a foreign language and helps in the process of “discovering” the Bulgarian culture. This activates the thought pattern of understanding the basic and unavoidable cultural differences but also cultural similarities and also motivates the students from other countries to improve their language skills.The authors of this article share their experience: choosing a narrative text, preparing such texts from their successful use in the classroom, using certain techniques and interactive means for adequate understanding of such texts by foreign students. The results are also described, as far as learning and managing lexical material, syntax structures and intonation details in Bulgarian is concerned.We analyze our work with the short story “From Wednesday to Monday” by Maria Doneva, which aims to “provoke” the active language perception of the students (including both grammar and reading comprehension skills in learning the days of the week and improving the use of past tense).The second narrative included in the article is “A smaller bedtime story” by Ludmil Stanev is presented to the students in the form of role-playing reading. This happens during a national holiday of the Bulgarian alphabet.