Poor exam question design !

First of all, English exams should be written purely in English !
Secondly, translating your slangs, proverbs and similar will make sense only if you find an equivalent of that in English, NOT TRANSLATING WORD BY WORD. I have never seen the collocation «giant of science» before. You can try to coin it and make others use and make sense of it. But it will take time till everyone agrees on a positive or negative description of someone.

The last point I would like to mention here and I have seen this mistake all over the world (been to 38 countries and taught English in many of those), they TRY to teach English by translating into their own language. It might work for tangible objects and that's it !

I have been teaching English in English from absolute beginners to advanced levels and all age groups from 3 y.o. to adults. There are many ideas, concepts, slangs, fables, etc. that you cannot and should not translate word by word.

I hope Russian educational system reads this and correct their methodology in TEACHING and TESTING.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!! ;-)

English tests are generally quite strange things. For example, it`s prohibited to use «simple» words, like start, good, bad. Then why teach this vocabulary at all? If it`s considered inappropriate to use. Why not then teach «normal» words from the very beg... commence. In order not to re-teach later.
As for teaching beginners in the target language only, it`s obviously better. But it`s very complicated, only high professionals can do it, that`s why most teachers use the native language. But teaching in the target language only is the main maxim of the communicative approach, so every modern teacher I know is aware of it. I`m not talking, of course, of teachers in regular state schools.

Good evening, dear colleague! Thank you for the question. I do absolutely agree with you that it's one of the important things in teaching English- to create an English speaking atmosphere in class and avoid translating into Russian. But sometimes it doesn't work, you know. Weak students due to their personal abilities find it very difficult and prefer their own language as a mediator.
As for slang, proverbs or idioms, it's completely impossible to translate word by word. It makes no sense then.
Anyway, there are as many aproaches as teachers. Every student is unique and I am 100% sure that every of us is doing his best to achieve great results.
Best regards, Yulia Skudalova.

Regarding teaching English in English:
The teachers shouldn't match to preferences of students !
I Havre been teaching English in countries that I didn't speak the language at the beginning at all.
I used photos, draw pictures on the board, jumped up and down, did everything I could to make them understand. They will have a lot of fun and they learn a lot.

Another approach for local teachers is to answer the questions (asked in local language) in English. You could understand what they said. You are one step ahead of me. I couldn't understand my students if they used local language.