Ne AATSEELom edinym

[Benjamin Rifkin]

Irene Thompson wrote (09:58 AM 12/2/97):

>I stopped going to AATSEEL meetings not only because of the awful timing
>and the Arctic venues but also because AATSEEL does not (and cannot) have
>enough serious panels on Second Language Acquisition, Language Testing and
>other topics which cut across languages. MLA was never an added attraction.

Irene Thompson is right that the MLA is not a very strong attraction with
regard to second language acquisition and pedagogy, especially as compared
to ACTFL.  With respect to AATSEEL, the Slavic field as a whole cannot
compare or compete  with the wealth of scholars and scholarship in second
language acquisition, language testing, and pedagogy that one finds in the
more commonly taught languages showcased at the annual ACTFL convention.
That being said, the Slavic field can boast some of the best scholarship in
the SLA field (for those who are not aware of this, I recommend, as an
example, the volume _Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context_,
edited by Barbara F. Freed, John Benjamins Publishing, 1995, a volume
featuring several essays by scholars working on the acquisition of Russian).

The pedagogy division of the AATSEEL Conference is healthy and growing:  the
conference provides a forum for scholarly presentations that reflect the
research interests of the profession.  There are, at present, relatively
few scholars of SLA in the Slavic field (as compared to the numbers in
French, German and Spanish); accordingly, there are relatively few Slavic
scholars working on issues of language acquisition, testing and other topics
that cut across languages.  Nonetheless, the 1997 AATSEEL Conference will
feature numerous panels, roundtables, and fora in the pedagogy division and
I hope that Slavists attending the Conference will "drop in"  to these
events to take in something of how our field is expanding.  Among the
pedagogy division events scheduled for the 1997 AATSEEL Conference:  a joint
AATSEEL/ACTR roundtable on testing in Russian (featuring representatives of
ACTR, CIEE, Brigham Young U.,  George Washington U., U. of Washington, U. of
Wisconsin, Middlebury College, SAIS, Pennsylvania State U., and the Center
for Applied Linguistics, among others), as well as 10 panels dedicated to
issues of pedagogy and second language acquisition and a dozen fora on
instructional materials including textbooks for Czech, Russian, and new
videotapes and  CD-ROMs for the teaching of Russian.  The conference will
host a meeting of secondary school teachers of Russian as well as meetings
for instructors of Slavic languages other than Russian in order to
facilitate networking for teachers of those languages.  There are
approximately 40 scholarly papers scheduled for pedagogy division panels
this year, all of which were refereed by approximately 30 referees this
year.  (The abstracts for these papers as well as a list of the referees can
be found on line at the AATSEEL web page.)  The panels for the pedagogy
division of the 1997 AATSEEL Conference are (in order of their sequence in
the conference schedule):

Content-Based Language Instruction
Attitudes of Students and Instructors toward Learning and Teaching
Empirical Research on Study Abroad
Roundtable on Testing in Russian
Technology and Language Instruction (1)
Technology and Language Instruction (2)
Problems and Solutions in Teaching Russian
Pre-College Russian
Teaching Russian Culture
Linguistics and Pedagogy
Business Russian

In addition to the panels and roundtable listed above, the pedagogy division
will feature a methodology workshop on using the internet to teach
languages, literatures, and cultures.  The workshop will be led by George
Mitrevski of Auburn University at 7-9 pm on 29 December.

The pedagogy division of the AATSEEL Conference is one of the smaller
divisions of the entire conference program, in accordance with the number of
people in the Slavic field working in these areas, but the division is
strong and growing.

It is my hope that many of you reading this message will take the time to
visit some of the pedagogy division panels, roundtables and fora while in
Toronto.  I also encourage SEELANGers  to consider submitting panel
proposals for the pedagogy division and abstracts for pedagogy panels for
the 1998 conference.

As to the cold climate of the AATSEEL conference location this year, while a
warmer destination may be preferable, the Toronto climate is  "culturally
authentic"  for those of us teaching Russian language, literature and
culture.  As a professor of Russian living in Madison, Wisconsin, who
teaches Russian,  I certainly have no right to complain about cold climates.
Nonetheless, it is my hope that all those who attend the conference will
find the atmosphere warm and inviting, despite whatever weather conditions
may be prevailing outside the hotel.

I invite you all to our conference in Toronto this December, and to the 1998
AATSEEL Conference in San Francisco in December 1998.

With best wishes,

Ben Rifkin

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Benjamin Rifkin
Associate Professor of Russian
Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1432 Van Hise Hall
1220 Linden Dr.
Madison, WI  53706
voice:  608/262-1623
fax:  608/265-2814