One of the serious challenges in teaching a foreign language in the countries where the language originates is that foreign students often limit the circle of communication to the representatives of their diaspora (Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.), using their native language most of the time. A paradoxical situation is developing: it makes perfect sense to study Russian in Russia, but students tend to limit their interaction with the local (in our case, Russian) language and culture to the educational needs. In addition, we often deal with mono-ethnic study groups in which intercultural communication in the studied language is limited only by communication with a teacher. The organization of extracurricular activities can help enhance the motivation and language acquisition in intercultural surroundings. The article discusses pedagogical technology, which we define as an extracurricular educational intercultural project (EIP). EIP is an out-of-school implementation by foreign students of an educational event for Russian schoolchildren. EIP creates a real-life communication in the studied language and is held on the material and by a means of dialogue of cultures. The concept of the project assumes that countries whose historical and cultural ties between them are not obvious (e.g., Cuba and Mongolia) become participants in a particular event, which makes it possible for foreign students to get to know each other better. Thus, within the framework of each project, a trilateral intercultural dialogue is being established, one of the parties of which are the speakers of the “host” linguistic culture. The authors have been working on this pedagogical technology since 2011 with 26 events, in which representatives of 32 countries participated (students and trainees), as well as about 5,000 Moscow schoolchildren and teachers.The authors conclude that the use of the discussed pedagogical technology contributes to following: 1) to promote the development of intercultural competence of foreign students, 2) to increase students' motivation to enter real-life communication, and, consequently, the effectiveness of language learning, 3) to have a pronounced humanistic component that contributes to the formation of tolerance and respect for other languages and cultures of all project participants.
Keywords: innovation, pedagogical technology, research projects, enhancing studying motivation.