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Croatian as a Second and Foreign Language in the Context of University
Ivančica Banković-Mandić
orcid.org/0000-0003-2100-5225
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Marica Čilaš Mikulić
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Abstract
Despite the fact that Croatian has been taught continuously at the University of Zagreb, as a second and foreign language it has not been a subject of scholarly study for many years. It used to be taught following the audio-visual global-structural method (AVGS) created by P. Guberina, while the first textbooks for teaching Croatian using this method were written by Lj. Jonke, E. Leskovar, K. Pranjić and I. Škarić (1962). Although AVGS teaching method experienced worldwide fame, it was not further developed in Croatia. First scholarly research of Croatian as a second and foreign language appeared at the end of the 1990s. From the beginning to the middle of the second decade of the twentyfirst century these research topics expanded from issues relating to acquisition of individual language categories and levels in Croatian as a second and foreign language to the question of language learning strategies, language anxiety, defining language competences, various contrastive researches and so on. In methodological and theoretical terms, Croatian as a second and foreign language is an interdisciplinary field which, together with methodological and didactic research, covers various psycholinguistic, linguistic, sociolinguistic, and pragmalinguistic research. The results of these studies are textbooks and manuals for learning and teaching Croatian and development of terminology. After listing the topics and methodology of research and teaching languages worldwide, this article will briefly introduce the range of issues and research methodology in Croatia in the last two decades and explain the external factors that influence the development in this area. It will also show how the application of these studies reflects on the concept of teaching Croatian as a second and foreign language at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences - how a language course became a university module. Research results in this area will be compared with the research and teaching of some world and Slavic languages as second and foreign languages. Finally, the needs, goals, and strategies for further development of this very dynamic field will be briefly presented.
Keywords
Croatian as a second and foreign language; methodology of research; teaching methods; textbooks and manuals
Hrčak ID:
174527
URI
Publication date:
29.12.2016.
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