Supervisor's statement for master thesis by Olga V. Smirnova  «Teaching Portuguese as a second foreign language to students of a fine arts academy using synaesthemic lexical chunks (the beginner level)»  The thesis of Ms. Smirnova is a scientific work done within Master's Degree programme “Foreign Language Teaching Theory and Intercultural Communication”. The author applied to Master's programme in 2015 having graduated from the faculty of Theory and History of Fine Arts of Ilya Repin St. Petersburg State Academic Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (henceforward the Academy of Arts). During her studies at graduate courses, Olga showed such qualities as autonomy, self-discipline, responsibility, diligence, and high creativity. The birth of a child in February 2015 did not stop the graduate from completing the course of studies and, thanks to her scientific purposefulness combined with analytical abilities, from writing a graduation thesis. The topic devoted to the problem of teaching Portuguese for specific purposses to students of an art college (evidence from the Academy of Arts) is closely related to the author's personal experience of student exchange program between the Academy of Arts and Academia Nacional de Bela Artes in Lisbon. The author took note of the fact that the fruitfulness of professional interaction with foreign colleagues depends directly on Russian students' level of proficiency in Portuguese for specific purposes. The study of the issue showed not only the lack of methodological resources, but also weak general knowledge of how to teach a foreign language in general and Portuguese in particular to arts students. This makes the research important and both theoretically and practically relevant. Ms. Smirnova has done a large amount of research while writing the paper, which expressed not only in the study of scientific and methodological literature, but also in the analysis of the current situation with foreign language teaching at the Academy of Arts (lessons observation, questioning of both teachers and students), as well as testing the students to identify  the dominant hemisphere, the leading sencory perception, and the needs. This required much creativity and painstaking work without which it is impossible to obtain reliable results. I would also like to note the author’s independence in interpreting the results and drawing reasoned conclusions that meet the goals. As a scientific supervisor, I can say that Olga V. Smirnova’s thesis goal has been achieved. Scientific research is completely original and meets the requirements. The work is recommended for defence and, if successful, deserves the mark "excellent". «12» June 2017  __________________ Yulia G. Sedelkina  Scientific supervisorCandidate of Pedagogy, Associate Professor