The Center for Language Study

On January 3 – 5, 2013, I attended the annual AATSEEL conference in Boston.  (American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages http://www.aatseel.org/program/2013-aatseel-conference-program/.)

I served as the chair and discussant on the panel “Nabokov’s Ethics and Aesthetics.”  I delivered a half-hour presentation on three papers sent to me one month in advance and moderated a discussion.  The topic of the panel was of special interest to me: I wrote a dissertation on Nabokov’s Philosophy of Art (Yale’10) and have used Nabokov’s work in my content courses in Russian.  The panel helped me compare and discuss my personal views on the matter with the views of those who currently work on similar topics.  The panel largely confirmed my own polemics against both dominant trends in Nabokov Studies, the “metaphysical” and the “metaliterary,” in favor of the aesthetic one (with ethical implications inherent in it).

Out of many interesting panels and round tables at the conference, I found one called “Making Content the Core in the Intermediate Language Classroom” to be particularly stimulating.  One of the presenters from Brown University, Lynn deBenedette, discussed her intermediate courses organized exclusively around content, not form.  While generally attracted to this model, I have one fundamental concern related to it.  Of course, it is wonderful when content and form reinforce each other in a language course.  However, as it often happens in intermediate courses, too much emphasis on content may compromise the presentation of and practice on formal grammar without quite raising its “content” to the level appropriate to a standard college course.  In other words, such a hybrid course, while entertaining for students and instructors, may end up being insufficiently rigorous both linguistically and intellectually.  The test of its intellectual appropriateness seems to be easy: we just need to ask ourselves if such a course would stand on its own as a college course if its linguistic component were to be entirely eliminated.  If not, then it would be intellectually “inferior.”  And the same with its linguistic component: is it sufficiently deep and thorough to qualify for a language course?  Or is the designation for such a course as “intermediate” sufficient to justify its shortcomings in both areas? I would say that much depends on the course and Lynn’s example, in my view, showed how one can successfully navigate between Scylla and Charybdis of content and form in second language acquisition.

I attended the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Chicago, IL on Nov. 17-20, 2012. At this conference, I presented a paper entitled “From Manuscripts to Edition: The Case of the Syriac History of St. Cyriacus and his Mother Julitta.” The paper grew out of an Intermediate Syriac course (SMTC 522) that I taught in Spring of 2012 at Yale, and two of the students from that class were in fact co-authors of the paper (Karen Connor [now at Harvard University] and Daniel Schriever). The collaborative aspect of the paper allowed me to mentor these two graduate students in writing and presenting an academic paper as well as to provide them with direction in the professionalization process that is essential to their development as scholars. 

Our paper was presented in a workshop on Manuscripts from the Eastern Christian Traditions, which aims to familiarize students and scholars, especially those who have not worked with manuscripts before, with manuscript studies within the broader fields of eastern Christianity in any of its languages and literary traditions. Our paper explored important methodological issues with the process of moving from manuscripts to an edition, particularly: What choices are we making when we edit texts? Why are we making these choices? What are their repercussions? If the vibrant discussion after our paper was any indication, this topic continues to be of pressing importance for scholars working in the field of manuscript studies.

 At the conference, I also presided over a panel of the International Syriac Language Project (ISLP) on “Perspectives on Valency in Ancient Language Research.” The papers in this panel explored how valency theory can provide a framework superior to traditional descriptions of verbs in ancient languages, especially Biblical Hebrew. For me, this panel raised questions about how one can best incorporate theoretical linguistic approaches into language description and ultimately language pedagogy.

Over the three days of the conference, I was able to attend a number of other interesting papers on topics ranging from the Arabic version of the New Testament to Ethiopic Biblical Commentaries to new discoveries in Ethiopic manuscripts. One of the most valuable aspects of the conference for me was the opportunity to learn about the newest studies being conducted on the texts and languages that I myself teach and research.

I attended the ACTFL conference in Philadelphia on November 16-18, 2012.  My panel, “New Tools for the Chinese E-Learning Environment,” drew an audience of around 30 colleagues. My presentation, “Quickly Create and Manage Graded Multimedia Chinese Texts Online” which, introduced a web tool offered by www.yes-chinese.com, which allows teachers to create annotated Chinese reading texts in minutes.

Graded reading adapted to Chinese courses at all level is a desirable component for students to expand their reading scope after class. With controlled vocabulary, graded reading will provide an enhanced reading experience without burdening students with excessive new vocabulary, especially at the advanced Chinese level, when students need more reading materials to reinforce what they learn in class. With the web tool, every Chinese instructor can create a text with audio files and with every character and words clickable to activate glossaries with pinyin and character stroke demonstration. The finished online text is accessible to students. The teacher can simply email the URL to his students, and then the text becomes available. The web site also allows the instructor to create and manage his own class. Instead of mailing students the individual URL, the instructor can create a special class which allows his students to register, so that students can access a whole semester’s reading documents in one place. This free tool is best for advanced Chinese courses, especially those that require a large amount of supplementary readings, such as media, literature, film, and business Chinese.

I also attended several other panels. I was very impressed by the presentation by Yuanyuan Meng from Columbia University on “Chinese for Specific Purposes: Context, Curriculum Design, and Material Development.” Her presentation was on a new course she has taught in recent years, entitled “Media Chinese,” quite similar to Yale’s Media and Society. Her presentation pointed to a very clear trend in Chinese curriculum building. More and more students find it necessary to go beyond the regular textbooks and to read a variety of Chinese texts covering broader fields. Students at Columbia, like those at Yale, are increasingly interested in content-based texts, especially if those students want to find jobs related to China after they graduate. Meng’s course is designed for students of both heritage and non-heritage. She has chosen texts from various sources, including newspapers, blogs, online publications, movies, TV news, journals, among others. While the course is effective, it is demanding, since the inclusion of time-sensitive materials requires that the instructor update course materials regularly.