As part of a research project aimed at improving the methodology of teaching Georgian to non-native speakers, Ramaz Kurdadze, chair of the modern Georgian department at Tbilisi State University in Tbilisi, Georgia, will offer Georgian language instruction at the College this Spring term.
Kurdadze, who is visiting the College as a fellow of the Open Society Institute an international organization that encourages cross-border alliances through various programs said the techniques required to teach Georgian differ substantially from those required to instruct students who grew up speaking the language.
Kurdadze, who has been on campus since the beginning of Winter term, will remain at the College through June to work with students who will study Georgian as an independent study in linguistics. If the fellowship is successful, Kurdaze might return to the College for six-month intervals to continue his research in 2012 and 2013, he said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
"For me it's very interesting how students understand Georgian," Kurdadze said.
Approximately five students have expressed interest in taking Kurdadze's course so far, according to linguistics and cognitive science professor Ioana Chitoran.
Kurdadze's spring course will offer linguistics students an additional opportunity to study a non Indo-European language, which enhances their overall study of linguistics, according to Chitoran, who helped bring Kurdadze to the College.
After teaching a class Survival of the Fittest: Language and Politics of the South Caucasus with director of the Dickey Center for International Understanding Kenneth Yalowitz, Chitoran said she decided that students would benefit from a course that focused specifically on the Georgian language.
Kurdadze said he hopes to use his experience at the College to improve the classes he teaches at Tbilisi State, where he primarily teaches Georgian to U.S. Embassy workers who must participate in intensive language study programs at the start of their deployment. The U.S. Embassy expects individuals to learn Georgian through 11 months of intensive classes that meet for five hours a day, Kurdadze said. Kurdadze will also learn about the administrative aspects of academic institutions, such as departmental organization and decision-making, during his stay at the College, according to Chitoran.
Linguistics and cognitive science department chair Lindsay Whaley said he does not anticipate that Georgian will be offered as a regularly-scheduled language course in the future due to logistical challenges like finding faculty to teach the language and garnering interest from a substantial number of students. Instead, the linguistics department will likely offer future courses that focus on the structure of the Georgian language, according to Whaley. Jillian Tetirick '11, a linguistics major and self-described "language dork" who plans to take Kurdadze's Georgian course next term, said she is interested in studying Georgian not only because the language is "very different" from others she has studied, but also because of the language's cultural links to the former Soviet Union.
Tetirick said she hopes the class will include non-linguistics majors, since most of Kurdadze's students at Tbilisi State are not linguistics students.
"I think that linguistics students approach learning languages differently and have a different understanding of grammatical principles than non-linguistics students," Tetirick said.
The Open Society Institute fellowship began in 1997 and enables faculty from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to spend a semester at a university in the United States, according to its website. While abroad, professors are encouraged to develop "innovative approaches" to curricular reforms and use their experiences to improve the education systems in their native countries, according to the website.
This is the first time that the College has hosted an Open Society Institute fellow, according to Justin Anderson, director of media relations for the College.
