Serbo-Croatian
(Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) 101-102 On-line
Syllabus
Dear Student,
Welcome to the wonderful
world of three cultures divided by a common language. Learning a foreign
language is a demanding yet highly rewarding enterprise. You are asked to
devote a considerable amount of time to this course. In return you will be able
join three very interesting cultures, Bosniac, Croatian, and Serbian, and be
able to communicate with the peoples representing these cultures. As someone
who has learned over a dozen foreign languages, and who has lived in five
different countries, I cannot emphasize enough how rewarding the command of a
foreign language and culture can be. In this syllabus you will find more
detailed information about this course, as well as your and my role in it.
Please read it in its entirety.
All the best,
Danko
Šipka (click on my name to
hear its pronunciation)
Basic Course Information
Where: http://www.asusilc.net/scr101
use your ASU ID as the password (chat and other resources are linked from this
web space).
Additional materials are located at http://www.asusilc.net/vlado, use vlado as the userid and your ASU id as the password.
When: Whenever you want, except for telephone and
chat room conversations which should be arranged in e-mail correspondence with
the instructor.
Instructor: Danko.Sipka@asu.edu
(responds to e-mails within several hours 24/7)
Phone: 480-965-7705 (e-mail the instructor to
arrange the conversation time)
About the Instructor
Teaching: Dr. Šipka currently teaches Computational Linguistics of Slavic
Languages and History of Slavic Languages at ASU. He regularly teaches Serbo-Croatian
at all levels, as well as general Slavic courses such as MA Seminar in
contrastive Slavic studies, Psycholinguistics of Slavic languages, etc.
Occasional teaching assignments include courses such as Russian Conversation
and Composition, team-taught at the ASU in the fall of 2002.
Prerequisites
This is
an introductory course and thus open to everybody. You need to be able to run several programs (see http://www.asusilc.net/scr101/technical.htm
for more information).
Required Texts and Resources
All materials are supplied
at the aforementioned Websites (see "Basic
course information above").
Background and Purpose of the Course
This course will empower
you with an introductory-level command of Serbo-Croatian
(Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) and give you a fist look into the three cultures of
the West Balkans (Bosniac, Croatian, Serbian). This course, either on its own
or in conjunction with the intermediate-level course, will satisfy the foreign
language graduation requirement at those universities and their respective
colleges which enforce this requirement. Needless to say, knowledge of a less
commonly taught foreign language brings about numerous other benefits, such as
broadening one’s horizons, adding an employable skill (especially in the
government intelligence, diplomatic, and trade communities), etc.
Learning Outcomes - Course Goals and Objectives
Students are expected to acquire
level 1+ in reading (limited working proficiency, with other skills exceeding
level 1) language skills as defined by the US Interagency Language Roundtable
(ILR). This level of proficiency corresponds to the high intermediate level as
defined by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).
This assumes the following skills:
|
Listening: |
Sufficient
comprehension to understand short conversations about all survival needs and
limited social demands. Developing flexibility evident in understanding into
a range of circumstances beyond immediate survival needs. Shows spontaneity
in understanding by speed, although consistency of understanding uneven.
Limited vocabulary range necessitates repetition for understanding.
Understands more common time forms and most question forms, some word order
patterns, but miscommunication still occurs with more complex patterns.
Cannot sustain understanding of coherent structures in longer utterances or
in unfamiliar situations. Understanding of descriptions and the giving of
precise information is limited. Aware of basic cohesive features; e.g.,
pronouns, verb inflections, but many are unreliably understood, especially if
less immediate in reference. Understanding is largely limited to a series of short,
discrete utterances. Still has to ask for utterances to be repeated. Some
ability to understand the facts. |
|
Reading: |
Sufficient
comprehension to understand simple discourse in printed form for informative
social purposes. Can read material such as announcements of public events,
simple prose containing biographical information or narration of events, and
straightforward newspaper headlines. Can guess at unfamiliar vocabulary if
highly contextualized, but with difficulty in unfamiliar contexts. Can get
some main ideas and locate routine information of professional significance
in more complex texts. Can follow essential points of written discussion at
an elementary level on topics in his/her special professional field. In
commonly taught languages, the individual may not control the structure well.
For example, basic grammatical relations are often misinterpreted, and
temporal reference may rely primarily on lexical items as time indicators.
Has some difficulty with the cohesive factors in discourse, such as matching
pronouns with referents. May have to read materials several times for
understanding. |
|
Speaking: |
Can initiate and
maintain predictable face-to-face conversations and satisfy limited social demands.
He/she may, however, have little understanding of the social conventions of
conversation. The interlocutor is generally required to strain and employ
real-world knowledge to understand even some simple speech. The speaker at
this level may hesitate and may have to change subjects due to lack of
language resources. Range and control of the language are limited. Speech
largely consists of a series of short, discrete utterances. Examples: The
individual is able to satisfy most travel and accommodation needs and a
limited range of social demands beyond exchange of skeletal biographic
information. Speaking ability may extend beyond immediate survival needs.
Accuracy in basic grammatical relations is evident, although not consistent.
May exhibit the more common forms of verb tenses, for example, but may make
frequent errors in formation and selection. While some structures are
established, errors occur in more complex patterns. The individual typically
cannot sustain coherent structures in longer utterances or unfamiliar
situations. Ability to describe and give precise information is limited.
Person, space, and time references are often used incorrectly. Pronunciation
is understandable to natives used to dealing with foreigners. Can combine
most significant sounds with reasonable comprehensibility, but has difficulty
in producing certain sounds in certain positions or in certain combinations.
Speech will usually be labored. Frequently has to repeat utterances to be
understood by the general public. |
|
Writing: |
Sufficient control of
writing system to meet most survival needs and limited social demands. Can
create sentences and short paragraphs related to most survival needs (food,
lodging, transportation, immediate surroundings and situations) and limited
social demands. Can express fairly accurate present and future time. Can
produce some past verb forms but not always accurately or with correct usage.
Can relate personal history, discuss topics such as
daily life, preferences, and very familiar material. Shows good control of
elementary vocabulary and some control of basic syntactic patterns, but major
errors still occur when expressing more complex thoughts. Dictionary usage
may still yield incorrect vocabulary or forms, although the individual can
use a dictionary to advantage to express simple ideas. Generally cannot use
basic cohesive elements of discourse to advantage (such as relative
constructions, object pronouns, connectors, etc.). Can take notes in some
detail on familiar topics, and respond to personal questions using elementary
vocabulary and common structures. Can write simple letters, summaries of
biographical data and work experience with fair accuracy. Writing, though
faulty, is comprehensible to native speakers used to dealing with foreigners. |
This level of
proficiency, as defined for the purposes of this course, stipulates acquisition
of all regular and frequent irregular grammatical patterns, the 1,500-unit
lexical minimum (with at least 500 units used in speech production), and an array
of common pragmatic patterns.
Take a look at the IRL
scale, justification behind it and elaborate description of the levels:
On the Defense Language
Institute scale of foreign language complexity, which ranges from 1 (simplest)
to 4 (most difficult), the value of Bosnia{c/n}/Serbian/Croatian is three, with
only languages such as Arabic, Korean, Japanese and Chinese being more
difficult. Ample individual work will be needed to reach the desired level
during a nine-week course.
In addition, this course
should empower its student to be able to recognize common knowledge, beliefs,
attitudes, and behavioral patterns of the region, and to behave (verbally and
non-verbally) in compliance with such cultural norms. In other words, students
should develop elementary cultural competence. This assumes the knowledge of a
catalog of the most important facts in both high and everyday culture.
Finally, students will be
given an opportunity to acquire certain basic facts relevant to their
interests. It is expected that two principal groups of students at this course
will be heritage learners and Slavists.
Course Description, Organization and
Its Conceptual Framework
This course covers
introductory Serbo-Croatian (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) language and cultural
material. Each lesson consists of the following nine distinct components:
|
Component |
Summary Description |
|
Introduction |
General overview of the lesson |
|
Cultural competence |
Both Landeskunde
summary of basic cultural facts and contrastive account of socio-cultural
differences in relation to American culture |
|
Grammar |
Phonology with prosody, basic morphosyntactic
patterns |
|
Vocabulary |
Subject-matter oriented review of the vocabulary covered in the
lesson |
|
Intentional competence |
Account of strategies in “doing things with words”, e.g.,
introducing oneself, taking leave of somebody, etc. |
|
Norms |
Spelling and pronunciation conventions |
|
Interactive drills |
Drills other problem-solving tasks with open-ended completion time |
|
Interactive lesson texts |
Multimedia lesson texts with glossary entries, full inflections,
and other comments attached to every word form in the text. |
|
Quizzes |
Drills and problem-solving tasks with limited completion time and
results stored on the server |
The selected components
are standard constituents of introductory language courses. Their choice and
order is dictated by the general principles of foreign language learning.
Course Requirements and Assignments
You are required to cover
the resources offered at the course web site in their entirety. Each lesson
indicates the number of hours required to complete it. Please make sure to
complete all graded drills, activities, and quizzes. You are also required to
respond to the instructor’s e-mails within several days as well as to schedule
and participate in eight telephone conversations and eight chat room meetings
throughout the course.
Instructional Strategy and Approach
The dominating
methodological framework in the introductory course delivery falls under the
rubric of the cognitive code approach, interspersed with occasional utilization
of communicative approaches.
The approach is at the
same time congruent with basic didactic principles. This is of particular
importance with regards to the progression of the materials. More complex items
are always preceded by less complex ones, known materials always precede less known
content.
Finally, the project
greatly relies on contrastive, cross-cultural, and quantitative linguistics.
Being designed for speakers of American English, the course contains frequent
contrastive remarks addressing the differences between American English on the
one hand and Serbo-Croatian along with its three ethnic cultures on the other.
The course operates on the lists of lexical minimum, grammatical forms, and
intentional phrases derived from longitudinal quantitative studies of
linguistic corpora and instructional process.
Options
You are absolutely free
to choose the time and place to cover the contents of this course. It is
however absolutely crucial that you devote at least forty hours for each
lesson, that you engage in all required activities, and that you cover the
content of the course in the order suggested in each Webpage. In addition to general course activities,
there are tasks and materials targeted at special-interest groups (see, for
example, the grammar section of Lesson 2, with optional links for Serbian
heritage speakers and linguists respectively).
Grading and General Policy and Procedures
Your grade will be
determined by the following parameters:
Graded drills 30%
Text-related activities
20%
Quizzes 30%
Telephone conversations
and chat room sessions 20%
The grades will be
assigned as follows:
Graded drills,
text-related activities, and quizzes:
80-100% correct – A
70-79% correct – B
60-69% correct – C
50-59% correct – D
less than 49% correct – F
Telephone conversations
and chat room sessions
Fully prepared, fully
active – A
Fully prepared, less
active – B
Less prepared, less
active – C
Not prepared, active – D
Not prepared, not active
- F
Learning Tips
Learning a foreign
language is just like hypnosis. It will be effective only if the learner
cooperates. This truism is even more obvious in an on-line course, the
principal limitations of which are sparse human-to-human interaction and
limited exposure to interactive real-life situations. The course thus remains
skewed toward reading and writing skills with moderate coverage of listening
comprehension and in particular speaking skills. In addition, there are general
obstacles in learning foreign languages that you as a learner have to overcome.
The following strategies
will help you increase the speed and depth of your language acquisition.
Overview of the Units, Materials, and the
Timetable
The following nine units
are supposed to be covered in succession and by devoting twenty hours to the
first lesson and forty to all others. In addition, there will be additional
materials and activities (such as telephone conversations, chat room sessions,
additional readings, etc.) which will be announced by the instructor throughout
the course. See http://www.asusilc.net/scr101/orijent.htm
for more information about the technical and structural organization of this
course.
Lesson 1
Culture: General information about the language and the
region;
Grammar: Pronunciation and spelling rules; Verb to be
in the present tense; Demonstrative adverbs; Gender of the nouns
Skills: Greetings; Introducing oneself and others; Taking
leave of somebody; Pointing
Vocabulary: Common objects; Professions; Pronouns; Spatial
designations
Norms: Correspondence between characters and sounds;
Spelling of personal pronouns
Lesson 2
Culture: Regions, major centers; Ethnic and religious
affiliation; Differences in attitudinal and behavioral patterns
Grammar: Gender of the Nouns and Adjectives; Matching the
Gender of the Adjectives with the Gender of the Nouns; Number of the Nouns and
Adjectives; Matching the Number and the Gender the Adjectives with the Number
and the Gender of the Nouns; Adjectives and Adjectival Pronouns; Patterns and
Exceptions in Noun and Adjective forms; Verb to be in the negative and
interrogative form
Skills: Expressing features and qualities; Expressing
possession; Asking about professions, ethnic and religious background; Asking
general questions; Affirming and negating; Contrasting
Vocabulary: Common objects, professions, ethnic and religious
designation; Names, possessives, features, colors, intensifiers
Norms: Spelling of ethnic and religious designations; Ekavian vs. Ijekavian forms
Lesson 3
Culture: School system; Popular
sports and teams; Flora and fauna of the region; Climate and Weather
Grammar: Verbs, Present Tense -
affirmative, interrogative, negative; Cases, General; The
Accusative; Wh-pronouns and adverbs; Quantitative and
qualitative adverbs; Prepositions with the Accusative
Skills: Relating about actions
and states; Expressing relations; Expressing time;
Quantifying
Vocabulary: School subjects and
coursework; Sports and hobbies; Kinship terms; Plants and animals; Basic
actions; Directions; Numerals; Days of the week; Months
Norms: Spelling of school subjects,
days of the week, months; Spelling of the negation; Spelling of the particle li
Lesson 4
Culture: Social and health care
system; Further attitudinal and behavioral
differences; Conceptualizing differences
Grammar: Genitive; Basic
sentence patterns; Agreement of the numerals; Prepositions with the Genitive;
Existential constructions; Verbal aspect – preliminaries
Skills: Expressing liking and
disliking - part one; Maintaining the stream of
conversation; Asking more complex questions
Vocabulary: Cognitive and
affective processes; Home and furniture; Garments; Basic medical terms; Body
parts
Norms: Word stress; Sentence
prosody
Lesson5
Culture: Transportation
infrastructure; Major cities; Major companies; Conditions of work
Grammar: Verbs, the Past Tense;
The Dative/Locative; Relative Pronouns
Skills: Inviting; Thanking; Expressing liking and disliking 2; Relating about past
events
Vocabulary: Transportation; City;
Landscape; Social life; Work
Norms: Word order; Spelling
of the enclitics
Lesson 6
Culture: Forms of shopping;
Culture of shopping; Banks; Telecommunications; TV and Radio Stations
Grammar: The Imperative; The
Vocative; Reflexive pronouns; Impersonal se-constructions; Accusative and
Dative Logical Subjects
Skills: Requesting; Issuing commands; Asking for and indicating directions;
Expressing satisfaction and dissatisfaction
Vocabulary: Shopping; Groceries; Banking, monetary units; Post
office, Internet; TV and radio
Norms: Punctuation
Lesson 7
Culture: Ethnic foods and
beverages; Major tourist points of interest; Popular music
Grammar: The Future Tense; The Instrumental Case; Adverbs
Skills: Promising, giving
assurances; Proposing, accepting, and declining; Indicating
mood
Vocabulary: Sightseeing;
Restaurants, bars, etc.; Cuisine
Norms: Spelling of the Future
Tense
Lesson 8
Culture: Major artists and work
of art; Literary traditions; Ethnic crafts; Major
religious holidays and practices
Grammar: The Comparative; The Conditional Mood; Numerical Nouns and Adjectives
Skills: Comparing; Indicating
possibility; Indicating causes and consequences
Vocabulary: Culture; Holidays;
Religions and religious life
Norms: Pronunciation and
spelling of ć,c,dž,đ
Lesson 9
This lesson reviews all major points covered in this
course it it's cultural, grammatical, skills, vocabulary, and norms component
Take a look at a light
version of Lesson one (with only limited number of activities) @ http://www.asu.edu/clas/reesc/scr101/scr1.htm
(use scr1 as your password) as an
example of the materials offered in this course.