The paper explores the potential for use of "The Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language" by V. I. Dal in Russian lessons and extracurricular activities, including preparation of research project tasks. To achieve the objectives of the study, a literature review of sources (research, educational and methodological, official), observation, search method, comparative analysis, empirical data analysis, and modelling were employed in the research. A system of tasks designed with the help of Dal’s works is presented; such exercises can be used not only in vocabulary learning, but also while studying the history of the language and its word formation, syntax, punctuation, orthography. Moreover, these tasks facilitate the formation of research skills in extracurricular activity. In addition, it is suggested that Dal’s Dictionary be utilised in science teaching. The paper presents a variety of teaching activities such as lexical commentary, data collection, language warm-up exercises, analysis, imitation, entertaining tasks. It is concluded that V. I. Dal’s Dictionary has enormous potential for the formation of modern learners’ important competences.