JNCOLCTL Vol. 15 Spring-Online.Pdf

JOUR N AL OF THE Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages Vol.15 Spring 2014 N ATION AL C OUN C IL OF LES S C OM M ON LY TAUGHT LAN GUAGES VOLUM E 15 S PR ING 2014 SPRIN G 2014 Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages Vol. 15 Spring, 2014 Danko Šipka, Editor Kwesi Brown, Assistant Editor Tulika Rastogi, Assistant Editor Charles Schleicher, Copy Editor John Adeika, Production Editor Antonia Schleicher, Managing Editor The development of the Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages is made possible in part through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education Please address enquiries concerning advertising, subscriptions and issues to the NCOLCTL Secretariat at the following address: National African Language Resource Center 1900 E 10th St. 708 Eigenmann Hall, Bloomington, IN 47406 Copyright © 2013, National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL) iii The Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages, published annually by the Council, is dedicated to the issues and concerns related to the teaching and learning of Less Commonly Taught Languages. The Journal primarily seeks to address the interests of language teachers, administrators, and researchers. Articles that describe innovative and successful teaching methods that are relevant to the concerns or problems of the profession, or that report educational research or experimentation in Less Commonly Taught Languages are welcome. Papers presented at the Council’s annual conference will be considered for publication, but additional manuscripts from members of the profession are also welcome. Besides the Journal Editor, the process of selecting material for publication is overseen by the Advisory Editorial Board, which consists of the foremost scholars, advocates, and practitioners of LCTL pedagogy. The members of the Board represent diverse linguistic and geographical categories, as well as the academic, government, and business sectors. JNCOLCTL Advisory Editorial Board Elizabeth M. Bergman Miami University of Ohio, Arabic Richard Brecht University of Maryland and NFCL, Russian and Language Advocacy Stephane Charitos Columbia University, Language Technology, Greek Victor Friedman University of Chicago, Balkans and Caucasus Languages Michael Hillmann University of Texas-Austin, Farsi, Tajik Scott McGinnis Defense Language Institute, Washington DC, Chinese The Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages is a refereed publication. The editors invite submissions of articles, book reviews, and advertisements for future volumes. To be considered for publication, manuscripts should be typed, double spaced, with margins of at least one and one-half inches. Articles should include a 150-word abstract and should be about 20 typewritten pages. All references and notes should follow the style of iv the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 4th ed. (1994). Three copies of the article should be submitted for considera- tion. If the article is accepted, the author will be required to submit a hard copy of the final draft and an IBM compatible disk copy. Authors receive two complimentary copies of the issue in which their article appears and may order additional copies of that issue at a reduced rate. Subscriptions and address changes to the journal should be sent to Dr. Antonia Schleicher, National African Language Resource Center, 1900 E 10th St. 701 Eigenmann Hall, Bloomington, IN 47406. Subscription Rates: 1 Year Individual U.S. $30 1 Year Institutional U.S. $60 v Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages Volume 15 Spring 2014 Table of Contents Editor’s Introduction Danko Šipka Teaching Norwegian to beginners: Six principles to guide lesson planning 1 Anna Krulatz, Sør-Trøndelag University College Informal Language Learning and Self-Instruction: The Learning Ecosystem 15 of Learners of Macedonian Biljana Belamarić Wilsey, North Carolina State University Developing Linguistic and Professional Competence: Business Ukrainian On- 43 line Alla Nedashkivska Content-based Persian language instruction at the University of Maryland: A 73 field-report Ali Reza Abasi, University of Maryland Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety: A Study of Chinese Language Learners 99 Han Luo, Northwestern University The Arabic Language Fog of War: Exploring Iraq War Veterans’ 119 Motivations to Study Arabic Language and Culture Post-Deployment Jennifer Nichols, Kenyon College Meso-American Languages: An Investigation of Variety, Maintenance, and 155 Implications for Linguistic Survival Ransom Gladwin, Valdosta State University vi National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL) NCOLCTL is an organization dedicated to the teaching and learning of Less Commonly Taught Languages. Membership is open to individuals and organizations that share this interest. NCOLCTL Homepage http://www.ncolctl.org NCOLCTL Officers Executive Director: Antonia Schleicher, Indiana University - Bloomington President: Alwiyah Omar, Indiana University - Bloomington Vice President: Jacques du Plessis, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee Immediate Past President: Catherine Ingold, National Foreign Language Center Secretary Treasurer: Susan Schmidt, University of Colorado Executive Board: Audrey Mbeje, University of Pennsylvania Wafa Hassan, Michigan State University Yea-Fen Chen, Indiana University - Bloomington NCOLCTL Mission Statement The Council’s mission is to increase the number of Americans who choose to learn one or more of the less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) as a means of enhancing cross-cultural communication among citizens of the United States. The Council’s work focuses on the less commonly taught languages which are becoming increasingly vital to the economic, social and political welfare of the United States. The Council seeks to improve the teaching and learning of these languages and to make them more generally available. The Council is the national voice for organizations and individuals who represent the teaching of these less commonly taught languages at both the collegiate and precollegiate vii level. The Council also promotes the use of technology, especially computers and the Internet, to enable a new era in cross-cultural understanding, communication, and language education. The Council constitutes a national mechanism devoted to strengthening the less commonly taught language professions through enabling Council members to work toward “shared solutions to common problems.” The Council principally directs its efforts toward building a national architecture for the LCTL field and in making the field’s resources easily accessible to language programs and individual learners around the United States. Activities of NCOLCTL Since its establishment in 1990, the Council has carried out a variety of activities to raise awareness about the importance of less commonly taught languages. The Council achieves its goals through the following activities: CouncilNet: This interactive website allows Council members to communicate on critical issues and to share information Annual Conference in conjunction with Council Assembly conducting research to promote and facilitate the learning and teaching of the LCTLs planning for and establishing a national policy for building the national capacity for the study of the LCTLs enhancing the capacity of existing LCTL national associations, and organizing new ones establishing a system for networking and communication among member organizations, and facilitating their collective efforts to solve problems in the LCTL field developing language learning frameworks to guide teacher training, curriculum design, materials development, and seek ways to address problems of articulation among different levels of the American educational system working, on behalf of the members, with government agencies, foundations, and the general foreign language viii community on policy issues and to seek funding to establish effective standards for the less commonly taught language field fostering national and international linkages within and across the various language areas Becoming a member of NCOLCTL Both individual and organizational Membership Application forms for the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages are available online at: http://www.ncolctl.org/be-a-member Editor’s Introduction Danko Šipka Arizona State University The present volume comprises seven papers from diverse linguistic and methodological perspectives. The first paper addresses lesson planning in a general introductory Norwegian class. The second paper, devoted to the Macedonian language, addresses a specific niche of language learning, i.e., informal and self-guided learning. The Ukrainian paper, third in this volume, addresses teaching for special purposes. The fourth contribution to this volume is about Persian and addresses one particular teaching approach. The Chinese paper discusses a specific student-related issue of speaking anxiety. The following paper, devoted to Arabic, explores a particular student population, returning war veterans, very common in many less commonly taught languages. The final paper is somewhat different from the previous seven as it discusses, using the example of Meso- American languages, the efforts to preserve and revive least commonly taught languages. All seven papers offer innovative solutions, which can readily be deployed across a range of less commonly taught languages. Teaching Norwegian

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