Viktoria Batista (University of Pittsburgh)

This panel is looking for presentations about innovations that college instructors of Central and Eastern European languages have been implementing in order to make language and culture courses relevant and meaningful in the era of post-Covid and the war in Ukraine. How has the pandemic changed our methodology and pedagogy? What approaches and techniques do we take with us? What practices do we discard? In what areas do we innovate and what are successful innovations? How do we adapt to different student expectations and experiences in face-to-face, remote or hybrid courses? What has the pandemic made obsolete, a “surplus”, in our courses? How has the war in Ukraine influenced our curriculum?

Abstracts focusing on 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, Romani, 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

Abstracts should be 200-300 words in length, and abstract titles should not exceed 100 characters. Presentations should be 15-20 minutes long.

This panel will examine the innovations that college instructors of Central and Eastern European languages (especially those less-commonly taught) have been implementing in order to make language and culture courses relevant and meaningful in the era of post-Covid and the war in Ukraine.