Owing to my personal history I am uniquely qualified to teach all three standards of BCS (Bosnia{c/n}, Croatian, and Serbian). In my defining years, I lived in Bosnia, spending three months each summer in Croatia. Subsequently, in the late 1980s I completed my graduate work in Serbia. I have published extensively in various linguistic journals in Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, even after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. One should mention, in that same connection, that my courses remain balanced and free of bias BCS courses are oftentimes accompanied by.
It is furthermore imporatnt to emphasize that my general BCS courses follow a sound methodological framework based upon the Interagency Linguistic Roundatble (ILR, formerly known as FSI) scale.
My courses develop reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills by working in the fields of culture (a mixture of Landeskunde and contrastive coss-cultural content), grammar, lexicon, communicative skills, and linguistic norms. I believe in a heathy balance of second language acquisition objectives. In my classes I have been augmenting and extending Krashen's monitoring model with heuristics intended to facilitate acquisition of lexical and grammatical content.
Finally, all my BCS courses make extensive use of state-of-the-art technology both behind the scene and on it. Course materials are derived from extensive corpus-based analyses while courses feature hybrid on-line components or are delivered fully on-line. This will become apparent if you explore the two links below.
PS: And yes, my courses are fun! [Click here to see my ASU class and related social events pictures]
With regard to my BCS courses taught in the United States, it is worth mentioning that I have established a two-week summer practicum at the Azbukum Language School, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. I have also initiated a study abroad program in Yugoslavia, which should commence in the fall of 2003 as well as six-week summer program in Serbian language and another program in the history and culture o the Balkans. This program would feature six transferable ASU credits and is likely to begin in the Summer of 2004. I have also organized specialized training sessions, such as the following forthnight-long, 80-contact-hours training session about Bosnian Muslims (Bosniacs), their language forms and social psychology created for USAF Medina Joint Language Center. [Click here to see the syllabus]
My background in BCS and Slovene language, coupled with almost one decade spent in Poland, where I have completed internship in teaching Polish as a foreign languge and obtained an M.A. degree in Russian philology, offer a strong rationale for my course offerings in comparative Slavic studies.
I have taught or I currently teach the following comparative Slavic courses:
I have always insisted on a healthy ballance of theory and hands-on experience in my classes.
[Take a look at the Resources section to see Polish - BCS lexical lists resulting from my classes]
My background in four Slavic languages, strong research background in computational lexicography and grammar, as well as my expertise in the field of psychology have naturally lead to the following three general Slavic course offerings:
All three courses have a hybrid on-line component:
[Computational Linguistics of Slavic Languages: An Introduction]
[Psycholinguistics of Slavic Languages: An Introduction]
[History of Slavic Languages]
In the course of my affiliation with the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland, I have supervised over twenty defended M.A. thesis. I am currently advising six Adam Mickiewicz University M.A. candidates and two Adam Mickiewicz University Ph.D. candidates over the Internet. I am also a member of two Ph.D. committees in Poland and M.A. committee at the Arizona State University.
Students who are writting their M.A. theses under my tutelage are advised in the course of a four-semester M.A. seminar. Most of the defended theses are available at the seminar Web page.
[Click here for M.A. seminar Web page]
I consider linguistic theories most usefull when applied in homeopathic dosages, yet I insist on familiarity with both linguocentric and anthropocentric approaches. Im my linguistic courses students are provided with introductory insight into HPSG on the one hand and cognitive linguistics on the other hand. The knowledge they acquire is meant to both provide them with research tools for their projects and to launch them on furter exploring these approaches. I have taught or I currently teach the following linguistic courses:
I have recently commenced to employ my background in Russian by team-teaching the following course with a Russian native speaker:
This course has a hybrid on-line component:
[Russian Conversation and Composition]
Having settled in the United States permanently, I am poised to tailor my course offerings to the American academic environment. In that regard I have been or will be designing and teaching upon demand the following new courses: