engleski

Big challenges for a small language: students' expectations from Croatian L2 courses

According to the number of its learners, the Croatian language belongs to the group of less-commonly-taught-languages. Thus, regarding the geographical position and historical background, socio-cultural and political status of the Republic of Croatia, the Croatian language has been faced with a growing number of its learners in the last 15 years. The main characteristic of its learners is – heterogeneity. The learners differ in respect of their age, first languages, motivation for learning Croatian and its purpose, required proficiency level, educational background etc. Since the total number of its learners is still too small for special language courses to be created (i.e. Croatian for heritage language learners, Croatian for special purposes, Croatian for speakers of particular languages etc.), a curriculum of a (general) Croatian L2 course should be created in a way to fulfill the variety of its learners’ needs and expectations. In order to discover learners’ needs and expectations, a special questionnaire was created. The questionnaire consists of four parts. The first part comprises of student’ s personal data, including his/her language learning history with the emphasis on the history of learning of Croatian. The second part investigates which uses of the Croatian language are important for the learners. The third part investigates learners’ attitude toward particular topics (that were intended to be presented in the curriculum). The last part of the questionnaire investigates learners’ attitude toward various learning and teaching methods and approaches, as well as their attitude toward assessment and self assessment. The questionnaire was administered to 100 learners of Croatian as L2 at two different courses: a four week intensive course (50 subjects) and a semester long course (50 subjects), both held in Croatia at the university level. Students’ needs and expectations will be discussed on the basis of collected data. The special emphasis will be put on students’ attitude toward particular teaching and learning methods, as well as their preferences to particular topics in the curriculum. It will be shown how curriculum of different types of language courses can be created (or modified) according to the learners needs.

Croatian as L2; language learners; needs analysis; content of the course; leraning styles

nije evidentirano