Advanced Bosniac Language and Culture Orientation Development

 

Intensive 12-Day Immersion Program

 

[Printer-friendly Syllabus] 

 

Introduction

 

The Arizona State University Critical Languages Institute (henceforth the contractor) shall provide multiple sessions of a two-week advanced Bosniac language and culture orientation development immersion program. The contractor will be responsible for the design of the course, preparation of instructional materials, as well as course implementation.

 

Dates and Venues

 

Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona (East Campus), Bosnian Muslim heritage centers (mosque, stores, restaurants, homes, etc.) in the Phoenix metropolitan area, two-week periods at any time during spring and fall semesters, subject to availability of the venue.

 

Instructors

 

Prof. Danko Šipka – principal instructor, course design and oversight (Danko.Sipka@asu.edu), http://www.public.asu.edu/~dsipka

Zlata Filipović (fmilna@aol.com)

 

Immersion facilitators

 

Three native speakers with at least high-school education, recent Bosnian immigrants to the United States, selected and trained by Prof. Šipka to conduct the immersion section.

 

Prerequisites

 

Participants are expected to have attained at least ILR level 3 proficiency in Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian).

 

Objectives

 

Participants are expected to acquire specific features of Bosnian Muslim standard and substandard language forms as well as to attain basic proficiency in Bosnian Muslim culture, politics, subculture, and social psychology. In particular, vocabulary items and grammatical structures related to the following fields should be mastered: Black Market; Police activities; Falsification and business of identification documents such as passports and visas; Dissatisfaction with Americans; Terrorism; Narcotics trafficking; Weapons smuggling; Human smuggling; Forced prostitution; Cultural, economic, and political background on the Bosnian Muslims and their interactions with their Croatian and Serbian neighbors. Participants are expected in particular to improve their listening and reading comprehension skills in Bosnian Muslim standard and substandard language forms.

 

Methodology

 

Cognitive code methodology is employed synergistically with the communicative contrastive approach. In-class activities, immersion activities, and homework assignments include both cognitive-code oriented analysis of the material and communicative contrastive role-playing scripts. The following modes of instruction will be employed.

 

1. In-class general instruction
1. reading, translating, summarizing, discussing about lesson texts and authentic printed materials
2. performing written and oral grammatical exercises
3. communicating with the instructor
4. listening to audio material, transcribing and summarizing
5. watching and summarizing video materials
6.  role playing
7. listening to and singing songs
8. playing linguistic games
2. In-class lab/computing work

1. performing computational drills (grammar, communicative skills, listening comprehension, etc.)
2. listening to, transcribing, and summarizing audio recordings
3. browsing the Internet (Web sites and chat clients of interest)
2. Homework

1. grammatical and lexical drills
2. compositions
3. preparing for role-playing exercises
3. Immersion

1. conversation with native speakers
2. visiting sites of worship (two Serbian Orthodox Churches and a Bosnian Muslim Mosque)
3. visiting ethnic stores, bars, and restaurants
4. visiting homes of the immigrants and their gatherings (e.g., concerts, soccer games, etc.)

 

Design of the Course

 

Distribution of activities within this course encompasses the following areas with the following relative weights: Listening comprehension - 40%, Reading comprehension - 15%, Speaking – 20%, Background/area studies - 15%, Grammar - 10%. In-class activities include various activities such as role playing, keeping track of unknown words in movies and on tapes, summarizing textual, audio, and video material, recognizing non-standard grammatical features, etc. 

 

The participants will conform to the following weekday schedule:

 

8 am-12 noon:   In-class instruction

12 noon-1 pm:   Lunch break

1 pm-4 pm:        In-class instruction

4 pm-6 pm:        Dinner break

6 pm-7 pm:        Homework

7 pm-10 pm:      Immersion

 

Course Materials

 

This syllabus and the texts used in class will be disseminated in printed format. Other materials such as lexical lists, audio clips, maps, lists of Web sites and bibliographical units, etc. will be distributed on CD-ROM. Video clips can be accessed and downloaded from the following FTP site: http://cli.la.asu.edu/vlado, User ID: vlado, Password: unistd.

 

Grading Policy

 

The following weights are assigned to coursework: In-class Participation 30%, Immersion activities 30%, Quizzes 20%, Final Exam 20%.

Schedule