On April 7th and 8th, Jelena Runic, together with her colleague Julijana Vuco, both teachers at the School of Philology of University of Belgrade, organized a Conference and Workshop, "CURRENT ISSUES IN THE LEARNING AND TEACHING OF LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES." The Conference was organized at the Faculty of Philology and supported by American Councils for International Education.

The conference was the first of its kind for language, linguistics and literature instructors since 1990. Its aim was to gather together language, linguistics and literature instructors from the whole of Serbia and Montenegro and have them network and discuss new teaching methodoligies and technologies in the fields of language and literature. In addition, participants were encouraged to discuss how and why to implement educational reforms in their individual faculties.

128 faculty and teachers from primary and high schools, universities, private language schools and other institutions of learning, as well as graduate students from all over Serbia and Montenegro participated as presenters at the conference. Presenters also included one faculty member from Slovenia and another from Ukraine.

Seven JFDP alumni - four language instructors from Belgrade, Novi Sad and Nis, one alumnus from the field of political science, one from the field of andragogy, and one from library science field - presented at this conference on the following topics: "Online education - new teaching skills;""Training teachers of English language to work with the youngest population;""Walking barefoot on thorns - yes or no" (presentation on academic writing); "The role of education and educational institutions in overcoming cultural barriers and establishing better cooperation among peoples;" "Teaching literature in relation between Nis (S&M) and Berkley (USA): theory and praxis;" and "Redesigning teaching courses through creating syllabi." Jelena Runic suggested a new approach to the teaching of syntax through her paper, "Generative grammar and learning: setting universal structures in the teaching of syntax." Also, Regional Director of American Councils Nathan Truitt gave an hour and half long presentation and worskhop on "Service learning: An Innovative Approach to Increasing the Applicability of Education."

JFDP alumni presentations were very interesting, inspirational, innovative and refreshing in the sea of language and literature related topics. But other conference presenters did not lack interesting topics and presentations either. Julijana Vuco, the coorganizer of the conference, gave an extremely interesting presentation on "Italy from this side of the Adriatic - motivational stands and cultural stereotypes with Italian language department."

Participants of this conference were language and literature instructors of English, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, German, Hungarian, French, Albanian, Slovenian, Roma, Bulgarian, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian as native, second and foreign language; Roma Children NGO staff; and foreign residents who are instructors at universities, or private language centers in Serbia and Montenegro. Presentations were given in Serbian, English, German, Italian and Japanese. Since the main goal of this conference was to implement educational reforms, foreign presentors had the chance to present in their own languages. In this way we wanted to target as many audiences as possible. Those presenting in foreign languages other than English had to provide an interpreter who would translate the presentations into Serbian or English.

On the evening of the first day, there was a cocktail party organized for all presenters. American Councils, jointly with the School of Philology, sponsored this event. The dean of School of Philology, Dr. Ratko Neskovic, expressed great and very valuable support for this and prospective future projects between the School of Philology and American Councils.

This conference was an opportunity for faculty members to share their thoughts on new teaching techniques, on new tendencies in studying and teaching languages and literature in what are often very conservative educational institutions. Teachers of private language schools were able to share their experience and techniques with their colleagues who teach at more "old-fashioned" state institutions. The conference was also a unique opporutnity for these instructors to get to know each other and network.

The conference logistics received high marks from participants: "The organization was perfect," said one participant, while another added, "Thank you very, very much for providing hotel accommodation!"

Even more than the logistics, though, participants valued the subject matter of the conference itself: "The Conference was useful both for presentors and attendees," mentioned one presenter. "Thank you so much for recognizing the need for such a conference in this country."

The papers presented at the Conference will be collected throughout the summer and published, in both print and electronic form, in early fall.

To dowload a program from the conference, click here.

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