language revival and stabilization (Ukrainian)

[Zev bar-Lev]

>> Among suggestions I would have (as also expressed in a thesis just written
>> on Ukrainian by one of my students) is to beef up courses in the US
>
>Canada too? :-)

Sure, even Europe!

>
>> -- not the traditional course, leading to grammatical expertise, but
>>rather a
>> shorter and more popular course, leading to communicative confidence (NB:
>> confidence) in speaking, for as wide a population as possible -- ethnic
>> Ukrainians and their spouses and children, and others, amateurs, who just
>> happen to get interested.
>
>This, from experience (not my own, but my wife's) is a hard sell, even
>here in Edmonton (commonly known as 'Edmonchuck'). It *is* a good idea in
>any event. The question then becomes how does one fund and market it?
>These days, no one is interested in learning for the sake of learning.
>And business opportunities in Ukraine are not yet that rewarding. :-(
>


In general, I have found it easy to "fund" and "market" very short adult-ed
courses introducing various languages.  In this context I have taught small
amounts of Czech, Serbo-Croatian, and even Macedonian (not to mention
Russian) -- altho not yet Ukrainian (or Polish), as it happens.


>BTW, I would really appreciate it if you could give the title and author
>of the thesis.

Sonya Frank, "Ukrainian as a Less Commonly Taught Language"

>
>--
>Michael Burianyk               Office: P534B Avahd-Bhatia Physics Lab
>Seismology Laboratory          Phone : (403) 492 4128
>Department of Physics          Fax   : (403) 492 0714
>University of Alberta
>Edmonton, CANADA T6G 2J1       e-mail: buri at phys.ualberta.ca


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          zev bar-Lev (prof.)
          dept. of linguistics & oriental languages,
          san diego state university, san diego CA 92182
          e-mail ZBARLEV at mail.sdsu.edu
          tel. (619)-594-6389
          fax: (619)-594-4877
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