Viktoria Batista (University of Pittsburgh)

Ljiljana Duraskovic (University of Pittsburgh)

This roundtable seeks input from instructors of less-commonly-taught languages of the former Eastern Bloc in an effort to share experiences and best practices across languages. Our goal is to bring together higher education instructors of foreign languages in the US (and possibly beyond) to facilitate collaboration and exchange successfully implemented ideas in pedagogy as well as the organization of academic language programs. While these languages are taught at various universities of North America, professional opportunities to compare and exchange such ideas and experiences are limited. We hope to establish a conversation across languages and institutions that can prove useful in the future implementation of best practices to attract and educate learners in these typically small language programs.

Any less commonly taught language that is spoken in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc will be considered, including but not limited to: Albanian, Bosnian / Croatian / Montenegrin / Serbian, Bulgarian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Ukrainian.

Possible topics for discussion:

· Designing and implementing authentic assessments

· Building proficiency in all four skill areas

· Effective ways of teaching grammar communicatively

· Teaching literature / Using authentic target language texts to improve all language skills

· Working with the language in artistically creative ways (poetry, film, photography, etc.)

· Using coursebooks vs working with one’s own teaching materials

· Building intercultural communication competence

· Familiarizing students with culture through project-based learning

· Successful study abroad models

· Working with heritage learners

· Individualized learning

· Language and gender

· Best practices for online instruction

· Student recruitment and retention

Presentations should be 5 to 10 minutes. Please submit a proposal of your topic and a short professional bio (100 words or less). For more information, please contact Dr. Viktoria Batista, vib21@pitt.edu.

The goal of this roundtable is to bring together higher education instructors to share best practices in teaching less-commonly-taught-languages of the former Eastern Bloc. We hope to facilitate collaboration among colleagues as well as to exchange successfully implemented ideas in pedagogy and the organization of academic language programs. We would also like to establish a conversation across languages that can prove useful in the future implementation of best practices to attract and educate learners in these typically small language programs.

Abstracts focusing on any less commonly taught language spoken in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc will be considered.