(from The Learning and Teaching of Slavic Languages.
Edited by Olga Kagan and
Benjamin Rifkin. Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2000, pp. 627--54[!])
© 2000 by Robert De Lossa. All rights reserved.
The state of Ukrainian language materials and pedagogy in the late 1990s leaves room for a bit of pessimism–that once was the rule in the field–and greater optimism. The most pressing issues facing Ukrainian language instructors tend to be more mechanical than methodological. Because of low numbers of students in the United States (approximately 100 students per year in college courses, with a similar number in college courses in Canada), [1] commercial publishers have not developed classroom-oriented textbooks. Published pedagogical discussion of the Ukrainian language classroom at the university level is non-existent; what discussion that does exist is at the personal level only. [2] However, individual efforts have increased–a phenomenon especially spurred by Ukraine’s declaration of independence–and new programs with a serious commitment to providing Ukrainian language instruction have emerged. The Ukrainian language traditionally has been taught by professionals whose primary appointments were either not language-based or were centered in Russian instruction. With very few exceptions, all of them approached Ukrainian language pedagogy as a secondary or tertiary concern. In the last few years this has changed, with specific language-related appointments at a number of universities. [3] Established sites of Ukrainian language teaching have increased many aspects of their programs. Harvard University once had a national monopoly on collegiate summer-school teaching, but new programs are being launched, and formal exchange programs also have increased.
For Ukrainian language teaching in America as a whole, the next decade will be crucial in two regards: the establishment of a formal literature and dialogue on issues necessary for the advancement of teaching and training of new instructors, and the assimilation of individuals and innovation from post-Soviet Ukraine. Outside the mechanical issues, the major methodological issues center around ongoing debates over normative standards for literary and spoken Ukrainian and the establishment of proficiency guidelines.[4]
This paper seeks to synthesize basic information about materials available to the instructor as well as discussing some of the fundamental practical and methodological issues facing her or him. Most of the information provided here of necessity has been collated from disparate, non-published sources. The author hopes that this effort will serve to facilitate dialogue and asks that colleagues in the field would correct or emend what follows so that a more precise picture can be made available in the future.
«» «» Five years ago, in 1993, while assessing the state of Ukrainian language materials, development, and pedagogy for the Center for Applied Linguistics, [5] I was pessimistic about the state of Ukrainian language teaching materials, but optimistic about the prospects for their development in the coming decade. The reasons for that negative assessment were a general scarcity of materials and their relative lack of pedagogical innovation in comparison with the general field of second-language (L2) instruction,[6] a dearth of instructors with training in L2 acquisition and pedagogy, and the lack, anywhere in the West, of a professorship or part of a professorship in Ukrainian language practice and pedagogy to support the creation of new materials and training of instructors.[7] The optimism was based on growing enrollments (a trend that has continued since that time),[8] growing professional interest in Ukrainian language teaching, new instructors appearing in American graduate school programs and from the new immigration from Ukraine, and the promise of new materials announced by several publishers.
After five years, the situation has improved substantially with regard to individual effort and institutional growth, but is less positive in the area of materials development. Of the new instructional texts and tape sets that have appeared (Derlycia 1993; Press and Pugh 1994; Bekh and Dingley 1997), only Derlycia is oriented toward teaching Ukrainian in the classroom (and then, only partially); the others are geared toward the self-learner, usually the business traveler or tourist.[9] Three new classroom-oriented texts in manuscript (Hursky 1994; Tsiovkh 1998; De Lossa et al. 1998) have had some limited circulation. The situation with supplementary materials has been bleak. With the notable exception of Smyrniw (1977) and Humesky (1984--87 and 1994), published secondary materials are virtually non-existent.[10] Dictionaries also were a weak point, with the best being Podvez'ko and Balla (English to Ukrainian, 1988) and Andrusyshen (Ukrainian to English, 1955) with subsequent reprintings. This area has had surprisingly good development with the appearance of Byxovec' et al. (1995), a good pocket dictionary (Koval' et al. 1994), and a newly revised edition of (Podvez'ko and) Balla’s Ukrainian-English-Ukrainian dictionary (Kryvoshejev et al. 1996)–all appearing in Ukraine (albeit, with poor distribution in the West). Several dictionaries that have been published in the U.S. (through the well-distributed Hippocrene Press) are defective.
In terms of actual classroom instruction, the number of universities and colleges with formal Ukrainian language instruction has almost doubled in the last five years.[11] Despite this fact–or perhaps because of the still small numbers of instructors involved and the continuing fact that their Ukrainian-related activities continue to fall as secondary or tertiary responsibilities–formal aspects of Ukrainian language pedagogy in colleges and universities remain largely episodic, so that new instructors looking for formal reference and guidance need to be aware of these "events." Recently, these have included organized panels at the annual conferences of AAASS and AATSEEL. (Efforts in the emigre community are described below under "Ridna Shkola.") Formal programs for teacher instruction exist in the Harvard University Slavic Department (as part of its internal teacher training) and at the University of Kansas, which soon will release formal proficiency-based guidelines and test materials for reading and listening comprehension. No testers have yet been certified by ACTFL.[12]
Formal publication on issues of university-level Ukrainian language pedagogy remains non-existent and the number of reviews of materials that exist is scanty and tends to follow publication very slowly.[13] In the absence of an experienced instructor, a novice teacher seeking to start a program from scratch in 1998 has no reference to discussion of relative merits of materials, what materials exist, and what current methodological trends are current in American Ukrainian language instruction. Other resources for language instructors do exist outside the academic mainstream. These include discussions of language usage in Ukrainian periodicals (including newspapers like Literaturna Ukrajina [Kyiv] and the Ukrainian journal Dyvoslovo[14] and the American/Ukrainian journal Ridna Shkola[15]). Relevance to the American university classroom is slight, focusing mainly on issues of orthography and usage as well as cultural materials. Occasionally, discussions crop up in the Ukrainian-American emigre press. Another Ridna Shkola-based resource are the annual meetings at Soyuzivka for teachers of Ukrainian sponsored by NTSh (see p. 636).
Despite the generic insularity of college-level Ukrainian instruction, it is not being carried out in isolation from current trends in language pedagogy. Many of the instructors currently teaching have also taught or are concurrently teaching Russian or other Slavic languages and are fully aware of issues of the communicative classroom, proficiency, and overall issues of methodological innovations, and are striving to introduce them into the Ukrainian language classroom. Personal, episodic communication is an equally important component for the individual instructor.
Because of the sparse and scattered nature of information for Ukrainian language materials, not to mention issues of pedagogy, the discussion below emphasizes access and annotation over in-depth analysis. In terms of actual discussion of pedagogy issues, published materials by and large do not vary enough in approach or sophistication to talk about success with various strategies in different classroom settings. The rest of this paper will be structured as follows: a brief discussion of the history and politics that shape Ukrainian language instruction in this country; discussion of the Ridna Shkola system (the heritage programs of the Ukrainian immigration in the United States) as a resource, with comments on the relationship between Canadian and American pedagogy; an annotated list of currently available materials; a short discussion of on-line resources; and a concluding discussion of issues that are likely to affect Ukrainian language teaching in this country in the near future.
There is no escaping the fact that it is difficult to talk about issues of the Ukrainian language and avoid the politics surrounding it. At its very core, Ukrainian language pedagogy is effected by the tenuousness of Contemporary Standard Ukrainian. CSU, still ill defined, has no Shvedova, no Zaliznjak, no frequency dictionary of the spoken language; grammatical dictionaries are minimal; there is no Oxford Ukrainian Dictionary to recommend to your students. Especially after independence, pedagogues in Ukraine have debated what the "national standard" should be, with consensus hard to come by.[16] Although Ukrainian has towering figures that have shaped the language like Russia’s Lomonosov, Pushkin, Akhmatova, et al. (for Ukrainian, Kotliarevs'kyj, Shevchenko, Ukrajinka, et al.), constant political repression, first under the Tsarist regime, then under Soviet rule, has undermined the attempts of cultural elites to form a consensus literary language. Especially in the nineteenth century, the historical division of Ukrainian territory between Austria-Hungary (in Galicia and Bukovyna) and the Russian Empire (in the rest of the country) also spurred varying national revivals, and different linguistic and cultural trends.
For the language professional, an appreciation for the current state of the Ukrainian language cannot be gained except for an understanding of the politics and history involved–indeed, much of what one reads is not logical except for such an understanding. Moreover, understanding the political background is important for adjudicating Ukraine-produced language studies and normative texts[17] as well as for providing cultural content and communicative strategies to students (for instance, what does the use of Galician pronunciations say in the context of Kharkiv or Donets'k? What does the use of Ukrainian [vs. Russian] mean in different parts of the country? How is Ukrainian language usage important to people in Ukraine and why?). Beside purely linguistic issues, understanding the background of cultural materials from the press in Ukraine or the Ukrainian diaspora often is dependent on understanding the history of repression of Ukrainian language and culture. Especially in the United States, the emigre community continues a historiography that is defensive, martyrological, and hugely suspect of all things Russian. Because the relative lack of published university-level materials conditions a need to look at internally-oriented emigre-produced materials, these are important considerations to note while selecting and presenting those materials to students from outside the community. One unfortunate correlate of Ukrainian politics and history that novice instructors cannot but avoid is the historical animosity toward Ukrainian studies evinced from within traditional (and in this country largely Russocentric) Slavistics, where often the assertion (or simple existence) of Ukrainian in a given location has been perceived as an anti-Russian, "nationalist" act.[18] This contrasts greatly with issues facing the Russian-language instructor, who generally has a long history of American interaction with Russian culture that to a greater degree insulates him or her from political issues.
In the classroom itself, one important reason for broaching the issue of politics and language is its importance to many of the intellectuals with which the American student is likely to come into contact if he or she travels for study in Ukraine. A good introduction for the instructor (and ambitious undergraduate students) is Shevelov (1988). A good introduction to Ukrainian culture and literature issues in the twentieth century is found in Luckyj (1990), Lucky (1992), or Ilnytzkyj (1997). A good general history for students is Subtelny (1994) or Magocsi (1996).
Ridna Shkola and the American vs. Canadian Communities[19]
Information provided by Xueying Wang in her 1997 plenary address at a meeting of the National Council of Organizations of Less Commonly Taught Languages shows the enormous disparity between numbers of Ukrainian-American heritage learners of Ukrainian (K--12) and post-secondary learners (heritage and non-heritage).[20] This fact, combined with the points made above, show that instructors who are based within the Ukrainian-American community have a considerable leg up on instructors from outside that community (whether because of non-Ukrainian heritage or because they are recent-immigration Ukrainians). Early in the Ukrainian immigration, Ukrainian-Americans had begun a formal program of instruction for their children to inculcate Ukrainian history, language, and culture (and, indeed, far-ranging non-humanities teaching with heritage teaching on subjects ranging from engineering to veterinary sciences!) outside of the traditional school systems in which they found themselves (Kuropas 1991: 352--60). Typically, instruction was centered around religious institutions or fraternal organizations–the Ukrainian immigration brought with it the impressive cooperative/credit-union system developed in pre-WWI and interwar Galicia, i.e., outside the Russian Empire/Soviet Union (Kuropas 1991: 9--10, 57--58 and passim). Parochial schools associated with the Ukrainian Catholic church also existed, with several "Ukrainian" high schools in major cities (cf, Kuropas 1991: 359). At its height after WWII, the system had thousands of children attending standardized classes in core subjects–which meant the necessity of materials development. In the field of language pedagogy, the basic requirements were fundamentally different than those for the present college instructor. Almost all of the children coming into the American Ridna Shkola (usually transliterated "Ridna Shkola" in diaspora usage) system had at least a basic command of Ukrainian–many had Ukrainian as a first language, with English being introduced only once a child entered formal public education. For this reason a major concern of the Ridna Shkola pedagogy (and in the journal Ridna Shkola) is stylistics and content. Grammar development has been managed through Ukrainian-Ukrainian grammars, largely based on traditional paradigmatic representations of government, syntax, etc.[21] The situation within the system is currently changing, since fewer of the children coming into the system in the Ukrainian-American community have a native command of the language and, indeed, many of the third generation, as expected, have no command of the language (Andrushkiw, pers. comm.).
The Ridna Shkola systems in the United States and Canada have produced a large number of language-oriented materials that can be of use to the college instructor (see below). Obviously, most of the materials are geared to young children or adolescents. Non-heritage students may find some of the subject matter tendentious (e.g., young Jurko saving the village from a Tatar attack). The instructor using the materials for primary communicative purposes should also be aware of the peculiarities of diaspora Ukrainian and reference, for instance, the high proportion of regional (Galician) usages that are now marked in standard Kyiv speech, differences in reference to past history that might still be controversial in post-Soviet Ukraine, and differences in syntax and phraseology (although these are less frequent than lexical differences). The Ridna Shkola materials provide good introductions to heritage concerns of the Ukrainian community, have production value, and varied content.
Another resource that the Ridna Shkola system affords is pedagogical instruction. The NTSh efforts mentioned above are closely linked with Ridna Shkola and most of the organizers function in both. NTSh and the Ukrainian National Association (UNA) have held summer workshops in language instruction for Ridna Shkola instructors at the UNA’s upstate New York resort at Soyuzivka. Although the workshops are primarily geared toward problems encountered at the Ridna Shkola level, other instructors have always been welcome. One of the major problems in collecting and assessing materials produced within Ridna Shkola has been the closed nature of the system before independence. Materials are not readily available in libraries,[22] are not widely distributed, and in the absence of contact with the Ukrainian-American community, there are few traditional (for a college-level instructor) means of finding out about them, since the academic interaction among Ridna Shkola pedagogues has been carried out exclusively within the Ukrainian-American community. Participation at workshops and roundtables, then, provides a crucial and unique opportunity for discussion and dissemination of these materials. In the past few years there have been approximately two dozen individuals who have been active, both teaching and discussing pedagogical issues. In the absence of readily accessible bibliographic materials, personal contact information is important (see note 3, above).
The situation of Ukrainian language pedagogy in Canada is fundamentally different than it is in the United States in two basic ways that mirror the difference in the communities.[23] Canada’s community became better established earlier and has always formed a greater percentage of the Canadian population than Ukrainian-Americans do in America. This has legally qualified it for state-funded bilingual education under Canada’s legislated approach to multiculturalism (see Lupul 1985). Canadian materials are geared toward true bilingual presentation of texts, rather than the monolingual orientation of much of the American materials, have markedly higher production values, and are integrated into and adhere to standards determined outside the field (because they are official teaching materials within the various Canadian provincial administrations). Most of those materials are geared specifically toward primary and secondary school students.[24] Many of these resources can be found on-line.
The items below comprise published college-level teaching materials that currently are at the disposal of the Ukrainian language instructor. I also discuss manuscript materials that have been in circulation and that might be released by the authors for pilot usage. I have found that the major on-line book distributors (especially www.Amazon.com) list most of the materials and are adept at tracking down ephemera; I recommend utilizing them for personal orders. However, in order to facilitate textbook orders and desktop copy requests, I have included ISBNs where possible.[25]
The material by Humesky, Struk, and Slavutych clearly are aimed at the college-level classroom. Derlycia’s textbook is a hybrid, a self-learner that appears to have started life in the classroom. The rest of the materials are geared primarily for self-learners but can be used in the classroom with various caveats. The five manuscript texts (listed at the end of this section) are all designed for classroom use, but none has yet been formally published.
Bekh, Olena, and James Dingley. 1997. Ukrainian: A Complete Course for Beginners. Lincolnwood, Ill.: NTC. [=Teach Yourself Books.] iv+299 pp. ISBN 0-8442-3680-2 (book only) ISBN 0-8442-3852-X (book and 2 cassettes). Paperback.
A patterned self-learner, this is one of the better texts to appear since independence. The Ukrainian is clear and native (mid-Dnipro dialect), and the presentation, through the device of an English businessman visiting colleagues and friends and conducting business in Ukraine, is engaging and well thought through. The grammar underpinning the material is solid and, although secondary to the point of the text (which is not grammar-based), well presented. The glossary and index are skimpy for classroom use (students trying to look up how a specific grammar point works will have far more trouble than those looking for a phrase). The two tapes are helpful and the speakers have clear, native accents (including, unfortunately, the speaker who is the English businessman–his being a foreigner is conveyed by slow, halting speech, not inconsistencies of accent or pronunciation to contrast with the other two native speakers). Although it would be difficult to use this as a primary text for teaching grammar, with its store of cultural information, illustrations, dialogs, and notes it would make an excellent supplementary text in the classroom. It is widely available. Dingley and Bekh 1996 appeared earlier and is a useful phrasebook for travelers (should the need for a recommendation arise). Both books are Anglocentric, but generally this should not represent a difficulty for students.
Benyukh, Olesj P., and Raisa I. Galushko. 1994. Ukrainian Phrasebook and Dictionary. New York: Hippocrene Books. ix+214 pp. ISBN 0-7818-0188-5. Paperback.
Geared toward tourist usage and full of errors, many of them systemic (transliteration of Cyrillic „ as "g" rather than "h" with phonetic value [g] as well–the linguistic underpinnings of the text seem to be Russian, rather than Ukrainian; or, at the least, confused), this is unusable in the classroom. Those without a knowledge of Ukrainian might be attracted by the book’s well-organized thematic divisions. However, Bekh and Dingley 1997 provide similar material with few errors, an excellent transliteration system, reliable grammar, and, most importantly, real Ukrainian. Hippocrene Books is an excellent distributor and this text is usually found at the local Barnes and Nobles or Borders Books. For this reason I think one must go beyond the polite "damning with faint praise" and warn those inquiring into Ukrainian language materials to avoid all Hippocrene publications on Ukrainian.
Derlycia, Zirka. 1993. Everyday Ukrainian: A Practical Basic Course. Guilford, Conn.: Audio-Forum. xii+330 pp.+10 cassette tapes. ISBN 0-88432-491-5 (text and cassettes); ISBN 0-88432-742-8 (text only). Paperback.
Zirka Derlycia’s Everyday Ukrainian is the most comprehensive audio-lingual program available, with a set of ten cassette tapes that accompany the text. Also, although published and promoted as a course for self-learners, it clearly is the only post-independence published textbook with the classroom in mind. The text itself is grammar based, but with topics and cultural material based in each of ten lessons. The lessons themselves are extremely dense (both in terms of material presented and typographical layout), with several grammar presentations, several scene-settings for dialogs and notes, vocabulary presentation, and exercises. Paradigm formation and repetition through exercises are the basis of learning. The text includes an answer key for the drills and this key notes what parts of the drills are not on the tape. There are several peculiarities with regard to the language, which I found included too many dialectisms in the tapes (the pronunciation of one of the readers sounded emigre Galician to me, another sounded distinctly non-native–possibly a student), and non-standard phrases and usages (in terms of the national standard coalescing around the dialect in Kyiv). A major advantage of this text is a wealth of exercises with a graded key. Disadvantages include the schematic way in which grammar is presented (which is confusing), overall presentation (which I found very difficult to navigate), the lack of grammar tables (i.e., nominal declension and verbal conjugation, although there are helpful appendices for imperative forms and diminutive creation), and a glossary that includes only English to Ukrainian. The index is very good and smartly includes communicative topics along with grammar points.
Humesky, Assya. 1980 (reprint 1986; 2nd ed., 1999). Modern Ukrainian. Edmonton-Toronto: Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies. $19.95. ISBN 0-920862-04-7. 1-895571-29-4 (2nd ed.). Paperback.
At present, this is the most widely used text for college-level instruction in the U.S. Structurally, it is based on Horace Lunt’s Fundamentals of Russian, the influence of which is clearest in the exposition of grammar topics and the primacy of grammar topics in determining the presentation of communicative topics. Modern Ukrainian is the most complete published reference grammar presently available. It is structurally flawed (the chapter breakdown leaves the instructor jumping from chapter to chapter to reinforce similar grammar points), and has language and topics that often seem quaint or sexist, or both, to contemporary students. The appendices (grammar tables, government lists, etc.) are superior to anything else now published and the glossary is good. Typos occur throughout the text, especially in accentuation. A tape set is available that includes recordings of the sound system material, dialogs and vocabulary, readings, and some music and literature. The text itself does not have an integrated set of tape-based exercises. Modern Ukrainian is widely available. The second edition represents a corrected and retypeset edition. The new layout is much more accessible. A few vocabulary elements are added sporadically, but the text corresponds to the first edition virtually in toto (but, again, corrected for typographicals). Information on ordering the tapeset has changed between editions. The tapeset now should be ordered from the University of Michigan Language Resource Center, c/o Vickie Earle, Room 2018, Modern Languages Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109; (tel.) 734-764-0424 (Humesky 1999: xvi).
Humesky, Assya, et al. 1984--1987. Manual for Individualized Studies (Beginner through Advanced Levels). Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University [=OSU Slavic Papers: 24--27, 55--56; Tapes for the readers = 24B--27B, 55B--56B; Instructors’ Manuals = 24A--27A, 55A--56A].
–––. 1994--. Reading Ukrainian 1 and 3 (Advanced reading comprehension texts with exercises). Columbus, Ohio: Foreign Language Publications, Ohio State University [= OSU Foreign Language Publications: 109, 111; Instructors’ Manuals = 109A, 111A].[26]
By far the largest production of materials directly geared toward the college-level classroom for Ukrainian language instruction has been undertaken by Professor Assya Humesky and a number of associates through the Foreign Language Publications series of Ohio State University. Humesky et al. have produced a series of graduated supplements that both are keyed to her Modern Ukrainian (above) for the first four volumes (Elementary Ukrainian 1 corresponds to Modern Ukrainian chapters 1--5; Elementary Ukrainian 2 corresponds to chapters 6--10; Intermediate Ukrainian 1 corresponds to chapters 11--15; and Intermediate Ukrainian 2 corresponds to chapters 16--20) and then represent an extension beyond Modern Ukrainian (Advanced Ukrainian 1 contains "extension units" 21--25 and Advanced Ukrainian 2 contains units 26--30). The first four volumes represent an expansion of the exercises, dialogs, and cultural material in Modern Ukrainian. The presentation of the material is based largely on the grammar-translation model, although a greater degree of topicality is introduced and the sheer amount of new cultural material allows for some communicative-based teaching with less emphasis on the grammar-based textbook on which the volumes are based. The advanced texts are largely text-oriented with exercises. The instructors’ manuals for all six manuals contain variant written and oral tests with keys to be used in conjunction with the learners’ volumes. The tapes represent some of the most comprehensive available (except for Derlycia’s set) and reproduce the dialogic material and exercises. Thus, in combination with her Modern Ukrainian, Humesky and her colleagues[27] have provided a full set of materials for teaching various levels of Ukrainian at the collegiate level. Although there has been criticism of the Ukrainian in these works, I find that generally it is reliable and does correspond to modern central Ukrainian usage. Some narratives and dialogs are dryly pedagogic and some seem kitschy to a post-independence audience not bred on diaspora sensibilities, but at the same time the advanced manuals contain a large amount of native print material (mainly journalistic) that is timely and topical.
Reading Ukrainian consists of five units per reader (continuing the units of the Manuals for Individualized Instruction, thus Reading Ukrainian 1 has units 31--35). I have been able to review only the first volume.[28] The texts for reading consist largely of xeroxes of material from Ukrainian newspapers, including poems, news items, op-ed pieces, public service announcements, etc. Other material includes recipes. The five units in the first volume are arranged topically (unit 31, "Contemporary Politics"; unit 32, "New Formats in the Press [Appealing to the Individual]"; unit 33, "Renewal of Traditions"; unit 34, "History"; unit 35, "Arts.") Exercises augment each text and the volume contains a key to the exercises. The exercises themselves are geared to passive comprehension. The production quality is the only cavil here, since the articles are reproduced by xerox, so that small type and illustrations are often difficult to read. The texts themselves are well chosen and give the reader a good selection of post-independence issues and views.
Poulard, Johannes. 1996. Beginner’s Ukrainian: Iak sia maiesh. New York: Hippocrene Books. viii+312+x pp. ISBN 0-7818-0443-4. Paperback.
This text should be avoided. It has the quality (and myriad mistakes of every conceivable type–in English as well as Ukrainian) of an ambitious student’s attempt to produce a textbook. On the bright side, it correctly identifies the lenited Ukrainian [h] for Ukrainian Cyrillic „. As with the other Hippocrene publications, because it is well distributed, professionals in the field have a responsibility to specifically tell those asking about self-learner texts to steer clear of it.
Press, Ian and Stefan Pugh. 1994. Colloquial Ukrainian. London and New York: Routledge. viii+373 pp.+2 cassette tapes. ISBN 0-415-09202-7 (book); ISBN 0-414-09203-5 (cassettes); ISBN 0-415-09204-3 (book and cassettes). Paperback.
Part of Routledge’s "Colloquial" series, this is a series-patterned grammar geared toward the self-learner. A number of instructors have used it with moderate success in the classroom. It provides a solid progression through grammar topics with decent communicative materials including dialogs, monologue descriptions, and some native material (both illustrative and journalistic). However, the authors display a not always firm command of contemporary Ukrainian, with slips in usage, russisms, typographical errors, and questionable linguistic ideas (e.g., because of the confusion of graphemic representation, phonetic output, and underlying phonemes, the discussion of the sound system is confused and confusing; euphony rules, important for Ukrainian, are therefore never properly explained, cf. pp. 8--14). The tape is geared to exercises and some of the dialogic materials. However, novices might find them frustrating, since material is addressed out of order within exercises; it appears that the textbook was edited and expanded after the tapes were made or else it was decided that the exercises included in the tapes could not be included in their entirety. An explanation or key to the tapes is not included in the text. The index is limited, especially if the text is to be used as a reference grammar in a course. The glossary is short, but usage information for individual lexemes is very good. This text is widely available and its list price is reasonable.
Slavutych, Yar. 1987. Conversational Ukrainian. 5th edition. (1st ed., 1959.) Edmonton/Winnipeg: Gateway Publishers.
A traditional grammar-translation approach broken into 75 lessons; and, evidently, geared for three to four semesters of instruction. The initial "linguistic" overview of the language is at times imprecise (e.g., "The pronunciation of Ukrainian is for the most part phonetic," [xxiv]), but covers most of the basics competently. The history of the language (xiv--xv) is tendentious, and the provision of an in-depth overview at the outset of the grammar is problematic. Each of the chapters begins with a dialog and a reading passage which at the outset are grammar driven, rather than communicatively based, but later appear more natural (for a diaspora audience in terms of content, lexicon, and stylistics) with literature readings interspersed. Slavutych does not provide a principal for the presentation of the grammar (saying only that it is an "adjunct" to the readings, [vii]), but the readings increase in complexity and difficulty quickly; this seems to be their only organizing principal. Exercises become crucial, then, for reinforcing dialogs and grammar points, but this is structurally the weakest part of the text with most lessons having only one or two exercises for enormous vocabularies, numerous grammar points, and several pages of text. The exercises themselves are mainly substitution drills (in various guises) or question-and-answer blocks. Despite the enormous (4,000 token) lexicon in the lessons, there is no glossary at the end of the book, only a word index with chapter designations where the lexeme occurs (581ff). The grammar index (577--80) is more comprehensive than usual; however, in the absence of a glossary or separate table, the lack of separate entries for the cases and government examples thereunder is sorely felt.
Slavutych, Yar. 1990. Standard Ukrainian Grammar. 2nd edition. Edmonton: Slavuta Publishers. ISBN 0-919452-35-3.
Standard Ukrainian Grammar is intended to be a structural grammar for students to use as an adjunct to an "oral" course (iii). As a precise linguistic description of the language, much is lacking (e.g., 4, the description of Ukrainian /v/ > [v] as "labio-dental, fricative, voiced" when, in fact, most dialects [and certainly the literary standard, such as it is] have it as half-way between a labio-dental and a true bilabial, like Castillian [v]; or, the statement, cf. 14, that "assimilation and dissimilation in standard Ukrainian are very rare" which ignores regular voicing assimilation rules). The lessons proper (20 in all) begin with a lexicon of items used in the lesson, grammar points, dialogs, readings, and exercises (i.e., the same fundamental elements as his 1987, but rearranged.) Presentation of grammar points in the lessons is highly schematic, but follows a logical progression through singular then plural declensions, the various conjugations (aspect comes quite early), individual syntactic points, etc. The quantity of readings per lesson is larger than in his 1987 and the number of exercises is increased, both in terms of number and of variety; most are grammar-translation of varying types: fill-in-the-blanks, straight translation, or substitution drills. Readings are tendentious as in his Conversational Ukrainian. The text itself strikes me as dry for a college student. However, the presentation of grammar points is clearer than in Derlycia 1993 and is less disjointed in execution than in Humesky 1980. The word list at the end of the text gives only chapter numbers where lexemes occur, but unlike Conversational Ukrainian, it gives full declined/conjugated forms, creating a mini-orthography list, which is useful. The index to the grammar (257--59) follows the same principles as Slavutych 1987.
Struk, Danylo. 1982. Ukrainian for Undergraduates. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (reprint 1987). ISBN 0-88962-079-2.
Explicitly patterned on Stilman and Harkins 1964, this is the most frequently used textbook in Canadian college classrooms at present. It takes a grammar-translation approach, with each chapter beginning with a vocabulary list to be memorized for the section, followed by grammar notes with drills (exercises) interspersed. Exercises largely are form transformations, word substitutions, lexeme to sentence-length translation in both directions. The advantage of Ukrainian for Undergraduates is a logical progression through the grammar and an overall lexicon that is well suited to the first year of Ukrainian instruction. The grammatical index is adequate, with most topics covered (for the student trying to figure out how a given syntactic structure works). The glossary is really a word index, with reference back to the chapter in which a lexeme occurs for grammatical information. (Thus, one gets the English or Ukrainian equivalent as the gloss, but no further information.) The Ukrainian reflects mainly the Holoskevych orthography (Holoskevych 1929). There are comparatively few mistakes in the text. The major drawback of the book is a complete lack of any cultural material–whether notes, readings, or illustrations. The emphasis is on reading and writing skills, with oral and listening skills to be handled by the instructor. Ukrainian for Undergraduates is widely available.[29]
2. Unpublished Works
Five manuscript textbooks have been used in part or in whole by different instructors. These include Hursky 1994; Tsiovkh 1998; De Lossa, Koropeckyj, Romanchuk, and Mason 2000; Shostak 2000; and Dibrova and Dibrova 2000. Each attempts to fill a very different niche. Hursky 1994 is explicitly patterned on Charles Townsend’s Czech through Russian, making it a valuable resource for the instruction of students with Russian and advanced students with philological training. Tsiovkh 1998 is a proficiency-based, graded reader with texts aimed at the intermediate-high to superior level. It currently includes finished tapes geared to the texts. De Lossa, Koropeckyj, Romanchuk, and Mason 2000 is both a basic grammar and a series of communicative materials presented through polylogs, readings, and dialogs. Shostak 2000 is a competency-based one year course oriented to intensive language classes (15--20 hours per week). At present it has nine audio lessons with native speakers, which also are available over the internet. Dibrova and Dibrova 2000 is a communicative reader designed to provide authentic material as the base for upper intermediate and advanced courses, where increased fluency is desired, along with the expansion of the lexical base. It is designed for use by pairs or small groups with close supervision by a native speaker. It also has a taped complement. (These last two works were produced under the auspices of the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute, an important focal point now for Ukrainian language materials preparation). Each text is currently available only through the authors.[30]
Dictionaries[31]
The only completely reliable dictionary of the modern Kyivan literary standard is the eleven-volume Academy dictionary (Bilodid, et al. 1970--80); it is the final arbiter for questions of grammar, literary usage and style. Unfortunately for the beginner, it is a tlumachnyj slovnyk, that is, it gives definitions in Ukrainian. Useful for both students and instructors is the most recent orthographic dictionary (Orfohrafichnyj slovnyk ukrajins'koji movy, 1994), which gives up-to-date spelling, stress, declension and conjugation. Émigré and Soviet-era orthographic dictionaries should be avoided. Bilingual dictionaries are of mixed quality.
A single-volume dictionary now exists that reflects the most up-to-date Kyivan standard: Femina Press’s Anhlo-ukrajins'kyj, ukrajins'ko-anhlijs'kyj slovnyk (Byxovec' et al., 1995). Koval' et al. (1994) also provides a very good pocket dictionary. Both have rather small registers (40,000 words each), which means that for intermediate and advanced work they must be supplemented by the following works: Podvez'ko and Balla’s English-Ukrainian Dictionary (Kyiv, 1974, reprinted Edmonton, 1988), which is usable, if overly russified, and Andrusyshen’s Ukrainian-English Dictionary (Saskatoon 1955, reprinted Toronto, 1993), which is good, but out of date and now overly representative of West Ukrainian and diaspora usage. As mentioned above, the Podvez'ko and Balla dictionary has just been re-edited and put out in Kyiv: Anhlo-Ukrajins'kyj slovnyk, ed. O. V. Kryvoshejev et al. (Kyiv, 1996). Most other dictionaries (including Benyukh and Galushko, Hrabovsky, and Niniows'kyj) should be avoided. An excellent and completely up-to-date Russian-Ukrainian dictionary now exists, the one-volume S. Ja. Jermolenko et al., eds. (1996). A joint project of the Academy of Sciences and the Kyivan State Administration, it is intended as a tool for those who use Ukrainian officially. Avoid any other single-volume dictionaries. The three-volume Academy Russian-Ukrainian dictionary, in its second edition (AN URSR, Rosijs'ko-ukrajins'kyj slovnyk, vyd. 2-e, Kyiv, 1980--81) is excellent, often including information on register and dialect. Glen Wright et al. provides a useful lexicon and explanatory texts for political science and public policy. About 250 glosses of individual words and phrases are provided, with explanatory texts. Each page is divided into two columns, with parallel English and Ukrainian side-by-side. The texts are clearly meant to provide Anglophones with context for the Ukrainian, and Ukrainophones an in-depth explanation of the English terms. Havrylyshyn and Karkoc provides useful business terminology with a larger register (3,500 glosses). The English-Ukrainian section shows especially clearly the fact that business and management lexicon had not yet (and still has not) concretized, so that numerous Ukrainian variants are given for a single English lexeme, whereas the same is not true in the Ukrainian-English section. For Russian speakers, another useful business language resource is Taranenko and Brycyn (1996).
On-line Resources
A number of on-line resources are now available in Ukrainian studies. A handful of sites represent "all-in-one" Ucrainocentric sites that have information on everything from current government officials to computing resources for Ukrainian in Windows and the Macintosh. These larger sites also offer links to a variety of culture-based resources, academic sites, and publicistic sources. The quality of resources generally is uneven, both in terms of intellectual input and polish. Again, a knowledge of Ukrainian history and politics is an asset. Issues of chauvinistic nationalism, anti-semitism, Russian- and Polish-bashing, etc. may be found especially in some of the alt.soc discussion fora. Because these are marginal phenomena that are hugely amplified by the lens of the Internet, students should be forewarned if they undertake on-line searches. (A broad search of sites, though, will show how peripheral these phenomena are and how different the emphases are between emigre and autochthonous Ukrainian sites.) A number of listservs devoted solely to Ukrainian studies are now operating. One is run by Andrew Ukrainec through infoukes.com and has a number of different topical groupings, including a general announcement list (send your initial inquiry to ukrainec@infoukes.com). Another is run by Dominique Arel at Brown University and is patterned on Johnson’s Russian List (Dominique_Arel@brown.edu). A third is operated by the American Association for Ukrainian Studies at aaus-list@fas.harvard.edu. Sites, of course, change constantly. A number of current major sites are included in the Appendix. Also, note that aside from the usual web search engines, the site-specific search engines at www.amazon.com and www.BarnesandNoble.com can also be useful. Finally, in order to take advantage of the materials offered by Ukrainian-language sites, you will need to make your Internet clients Ukrainian Cyrillic-savvy. Shareware products to that end are available at the sites listed under no. 1 in the Appendix.
Ukrainian language pedagogy at the university level in the United States continues mainly to be a concatenation of individuals; it is only on the edge of becoming a field of study. When these individuals gather–after the usual grumbling about the lack of materials dies down–certain central issues are discussed. The most important is the question of orthographic usage and language norms. It has integral resonance for heritage teachers of the third wave or earlier, for the simple reason that Soviet authorities sought to destroy the orthographic norms that most of that community brought out of Ukraine with it. For post-independence Ukraine, it has been of vital importance inasmuch as language was seen early on as vital to sovereignty, even by ethnic Russians and Russophones who were involved in the statebuilding process. [32] Because it is integrally tied to the concept of independence and statehood (and in an increasingly de-ethnicized manner), the Ukrainian language has also been tied to the break with the Soviet past. In some ways this has meant that the concern for developing orthographic norms for classroom guidance and general use is almost a mania that transcends linguistic bounds.[33] Despite the various obstacles to achieving consensus on literary norms, a number of useful guides have appeared, including Serbens'ka et al., eds. (1994), Antonenko-Davydovych (1991), Jermolenko et al. (1990), the 4th edition Ukrajins'kyj pravopys (Ditel', ed. 1993) and Holovashchuk et al. (1994; which is superior to Burjachok 1995).[34]
Although one cannot talk about a Ukrainian norm that is as commonly accepted as contemporary literary Russian, certain trends are beginning to coalesce, with the growth of Ukrainian-language television, radio, and print media. This norm is based on a central Dnipro (Kyiv) and Poltava dialect, with admixtures from Galician (western) Ukrainian. Diaspora usage, which fell out of favor after the first few years of independence, has, according to several of my informants, begun to be used by some youth and may influence norms for the coming generation. Ironically, this process is probably most dependent on economics–as the Ukrainian economy picks up and cultural production grows and jobs in the government and private sector grow, the need for more refined Ukrainophones will grow and the ability of the government to provide resources for normative Ukrainian instruction also will increase. Generationally, a young post-Soviet generation not burdened by the historical legacy of its parents will begin to influence language-based issues in government and society. That is ten years away, at best.
In America, issues of the proficiency-based and communicative classrooms for Ukrainian have not been widely broached. (Exceptions for the proficiency movement have been noted above.) The turn toward text-based, authentic materials-motivated instruction is noticeable in some materials, but many of the functional lessons based in, say, the acknowledgment of the importance of strategizing communication, are simply not to be found in Ukrainian language materials to date.
The outlook for the future of Ukrainian language pedagogy and materials development will depend on two major factors. The first will be the desire of American and Canadian pedagogues to formally associate and publish. It remains unclear whether there is sufficient drive within these groups for more formal structures to emerge. The second major factor will be the influence of native Ukrainian production on the North American scholarly community, both as a guide and as a spur. There is cause for greater optimism here. Native Ukrainian production has already outstripped foreign efforts in the production of dictionaries and orthographic materials. Individuals traveling in the West from the Potebnja Institute of Ukrainian Language (at the Ukrainian Academy of Science) and several universities in Kyiv and Lviv have had tremendous impact on the institutions where they have stayed; one of them has already collaborated on two Western language texts. It will be some time until a critical mass of full-time language professionals from Ukraine will have a sufficient understanding of Western pedagogy and the functioning of our academe to be able to provide fruitful criticism and materials production for our classrooms. Given the current trends, though, I am certain that day will arrive in the not-too-distant future.
Andrukhovych, Yuri. Recreations. Trans. Marko Pavlyshyn. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1998.
Andrusyshen, C.H., et al., comp. Ukrainian-English Dictionary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985.
Antonenko-Davydovych, Borys. Jak my hovorymo. Kyiv/Edmonton: Lybid'/ CIUS Press, 1991.
Balla, Mykola Ivanovych. Anhlo-Ukrajins'kyj slovnyk. 2 vols. Ed. O.V. Kryvoshejev et al. Kyiv: Osvita, 1996.
Bekh, Olena, and James Dingley. Ukrainian: A Complete Course for Beginners. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC [= Teach Yourself Books], 1997.
Benyukh, Olesj P. and Raisa I. Galushko. Ukrainian Phrasebook and Dictionary. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994.
–––. Ukrainian-English (Hippocrene Standard Dictionary). New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994.
Bilodid, I.K. et al., eds. Slovnyk ukrajins'koji movy. 11 vols. Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1970--80.
Burjachok, Andrij Andrijovych. Orfohrafichnyj slovnyk ukrajins'koji movy. Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1995. ISBN 5-12-004623-1
Byxovec', N.M., et al. comp. Anhlo-Ukrajins'kyj Slovnyk Ukrajins'ko-Anhlijs'kyj. English-Ukrainian Dictionary Ukrainian-English. Ed. Ju. O. Zhluktenko. Kyiv: Femina, 1995.
De Lossa, Robert A., R. Robert Koropeckyj, Robert Romanchuk, and Alexandra Isaievych Mason. Rozmovljajmo! (Let’s Talk!): A Basic Ukrainian Course with Polylogs, Grammar, and Conversation Lessons. Manuscript, 2000. Contact author for distribution.
Derlycia, Zirka. Everyday Ukrainian: A Practical Basic Course. Guilford, CT: Audio-Forum, 1993.
Dibrova, Volodymyr. Peltse and Pentameron. Trans. Halyna Hryn. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press [=Writings from an Unbound Europe], 1996.
–––, and Lidia Dibrova. Svojimy slovamy. Pidruchnyk ukrajins'koji movy (serednij ta vyshchy riven'). Manuscript, 2000. Contact author for distribution.
Dingley, Jim, and Olena Bekh. Ukrainian Phrasebook. London: Lonely Planet Publications, 1996. ISBN 0-86442-339-X
Ditel', O.A., ed. Ukrajins'kyj pravopys. 4th expanded and rev. ed. Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1993.
Duravetz, George. Ukrainian: Conversational and Grammatical. Level I and Level II. Toronto: Ukrainian Teachers’ Committee and Ontario Modern Language Teachers’ Association, 1973. ISBN 5-12-003832-8
Havrylyshyn, Yarema and Orysia Karkoc. Glossary of Business Terminology: English-Ukrainian, Ukrainian-English. Kyiv [Kiev], 1993.
Hogan, Ed, et al., eds. From Three Worlds: New Ukrainian Writing. Boston: Zephyr Press, 1996. ISBN 5-7707-4321-2
Holoskevych, Hryhorij. Pravopysnyj slovnyk. 1929. New York: A. Bilous, 1952. (A reprint of the 1929 orthography, which represented the conventions adopted by the 1928 State Orthographic Commission. For details, see Shevelov 1988, 131--32).
Holovashãuk, S.I., et al., comp. Orfohrafichnyj slovnyk ukrajins'koji movy. Kyiv: Dovira, 1994. ISBN 5-85154-112-1
Hrabovsky, Leonid. Ukrainian-English, English-Ukrainian Dictionary. New York: Hippocrene, 1991.
Humesky, Assya. Modern Ukrainian. Edmonton/Toronto: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1980 [reprint = 1986; revised, 2nd ed. = 1999].
Humesky, Assya, et al. Manual for Individualized Studies (Beginner through Advanced Levels). Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University, 1984--87. [=OSU Slavic Papers: 24--27, 55--56; Tapes for the readers = 24B--27B, 55B--56B; Instructors’ Manuals = 24A--27A, 55A--56A.]
–––. Reading Ukrainian 1 and 3. (Advanced Reading Comprehension Texts with Exercises). Columbus, Ohio: Foreign Language Publications, Ohio State University, 1994. [= OSU Foreign Language Publications: 109, 111; Instructors’ Manuals = 109A, 111A.]
Hursky, Tatiana. Ukrainian through Russian. Manuscript, 1994. Contact author for distribution.
Ilnytzkyj, Oleh. Ukrainian Futurism, 1914--1930. A Historical and Critical Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute/Harvard UP, 1997.
Jermolenko, S. Ja., V.I. Jermolenko, et al. Novyj rosijs'ko-ukrajins'kyj slovnyk-dovidnyk. Kyiv: Dovira, 1996.
Kiebuzinski, Ksenya, comp. Academic Directory for Ukrainian Scholars: Research Opportunities in North America. 1996, at www.huri. harvard.edu/Directory/index.html.
Koval', S.A., et al., comp. Slovnyk Anhlijs'ko-Ukrajins'kyj, Ukrajins'ko-Anhlijs'kyj. Irpin': Perun, 1994. ISBN 5-7707-6407-4
Kuropas, Myron B. The Ukrainian Americans: Roots and Aspirations, 1994--1954. (????) Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.
Luckyj, George S.N. Literary Politics in the Soviet Ukraine, 1917--1934. Rev. and expanded ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press [= Studies of the Harriman Institute], 1990.
–––. Ukrainian Literature in the Twentieth Century: A Reader’s Guide. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
Lupul, Manoly R. "Ukrainian-Language Education in Canada’s Public Schools." A Heritage in Transition: Essays in the History of Ukrainians in Canada. Ed. Manoly R. Lupul. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982. 215--44.
–––. Osvita. Ukrainian Bilingual Education. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1985.
Lysheha, Oleh B., and James Brasfield, trans. The Selected Poems of Oleh Lysheha. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute/Harvard UP, 1999.
Magocsi, Paul Robert. A History of Ukraine. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996.
Nimchuk, Vasyl' V., ed. Ukrajins'kyj pravopys (projekt najnovishoji redaktsiji. Kyiv: Inst. Ukrajins'koji movy NANU, 1999.
Niniows'kyi, W. Ukrainian-English and English-Ukrainian Dictionary. 2nd rev. ed. Edmonton: Ukrainian Book Store, 1985.
Oparenko, Christine. Ukrainian Folk Tales. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. [=Oxford Myths and Legends Series]. ISBN 0-1927416-83 (for cultural introduction)
Podvez'ko, Mykhailo Leontovych, and Mykola Ivanovych Balla. Anhlo-ukrajins'kyj slovnyk. Kyiv: n.p., 1974. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1988.
Poulard, Johannes. Beginner’s Ukrainian: Iak sia maiesh. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1996.
Press, Ian and Stefan Pugh. Colloquial Ukrainian. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
Rifkin, Benjamin. "Report on the Conference of the National Council of Organizations of Less Commonly Taught Languages, Madison, Wisconsin, October 1997." Personal communication.
Rusanivs'kyj, V.M., ed. Kul'tura ukrajins'koji movy: Dovidnyk. Kyiv: Lybid', 1990. ISBN 5-11-001484-1
Serbens'ka, Oleksandra, ed. Anti-Surzhyk. L'viv: Svit, 1994.
Shevchenko, L. Ju., V.V. Rizun, and Ju. V. Lysenko. Suchasna ukrajins'ka mova: Dovidnyk. Ed. O. D. Ponomariv. 2nd expanded and rev. ed. Kyiv: Lybid', 1996. ISBN 5-325-00757-2
Shevelov, George. The Ukrainian Language in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: 1900--1941. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute/Harvard UP, 1988.
Shostak, Natalia. Krokus. (First Year Ukrainian Course). Manuscript, 2000. Contact author for distribution.
Slavutych, Yar. Conversational Ukrainian. 5th edition. Edmonton/Winnipeg: Gateway Publishers, 1987.
Smyrniw, Walter. A Ukrainian Prose Manual: A Text for Intermediate Language Studies. Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1977.
Struk, Danylo. Ukrainian for Undergraduates. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1982 [reprint = 1987].
Subtelny, Orest. Ukraine: A History. 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.
Taranenko, O.O. and V.M. Brycyn. Russko-ukrainskii slovar' (sfera delovogo obshchenija) / Rosijs'ko-ukrajins'kyj slovnyk (sfera dilovoho spilkuvannja). Kyiv: Ridna mova, 1996. ISBN 5-7707-9732-0.
Tsiovkh, Yaroslava Ivanovna. Ukrainian through History and Culture. Manuscript, 1998. Contact author for distribution.
VocabuLearn Ukrainian. Carlsbad, CA: Penton Overseas, Inc., 1994.
Wright, Glen, et al., comp. Vasyl Ivashko, trans. Anhlijs'ko-Ukrajins'kyj slovnyk terminiv i ponjat' z derzhavnoho upravlinnja / English-Ukrainian Lexicon of Terms and Concepts in Public Administration. Kyiv: Osnovy, 1996. ISBN 966-500-015-2.
Wynnyckyj, Oksana A. Learning Ukrainian Morphology in a Second Language Classroom Setting. Diss. U of Toronto, 1993. ISBN 966-500-015-2
Zhluktenko, Yu. O., N.I. Totska, and T.K. Molodid. Ukrainian. A Textbook for Beginners. 3d ed. Kyiv: Vyshcha shkola, 1978.
Ukrainian Research Institute
Harvard University
1583 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02138
1. "BRAMA: Gateway to Ukraine" (Max Pyziur) www.brama.com
"Ukraine" (Oleh Baran) www.physics.mcgill.ca/WWW/oleh/ ukr-info.html
The two largest "all-in-one" sites, with very broad cultural material, texts, graphics, "information please" data, maps, software resources for computing in Ukrainian, and the largest annotated sets of links to sites in Ukraine, Russia, and the West. Coverage extends over a variety of areas: academics/education, government/practitioner sites, entertainment/cultural goods. An enormous amount of information (much of it downloadable and reproducible) is located on-site. Both are located on fast servers.
2. World Language Resource Website www.worldlanguage.com
Contains information on obtaining various software packages, translating programs and hand-held translators, self-study cassette tape programs, and an import/export contract template.
3. UKRAINET www.ukrainet.org/ukraine.html
Another "all-in-one" site with both links and onsite content, ranging from periodical lists to political facts, to laws, to business, to travel, to genealogy. Useful for the collection of factual materials and cultural flavor, but does not have links to college-level teaching materials per se. Also, the scholarly level of the information provided (both in terms of presentation and quality of the information) is generally lower than the sites listed in no. 1 above.
4. "Academic Directory for Ukrainian Scholars" (Ksenya Kiebuzinski) www.huri.harvard.edu/Directory/index.html
The directory is primarily geared toward providing information to Eastern European scholars who wish to establish contacts with North American colleagues. However, it serves double duty as a good guide to the field for scholars here. A list of North American university instructors involved in Ukrainian-language study and teaching is available there. It also has a contact list for organizations (e.g., American Association for Ukrainian Studies and NTSh) and Ukrainian materials publishers.
5. CALL "Ukrainian Language Learning Resources" call.lingnet.org/resource/language/ukrlr000.htm
A government-mandated site, it has 11 website links, updated as of September 21, 1999, mainly to Ukrainian press resources (one in Russian), with several links for software support, and a few of the sites listed above. It also has a link to Voice of America and Radio Canada International, which makes it a bit more useful as a secondary resource to the sites listed in no. 1 above.
[!] For maximum compatibility this page has been prepared without any special diacritic marks (webmaster).
[1] This is based on telephone interviews of departments listed on the University of Minnesota Less Commonly Taught Website carla.acad.umn.edu/lctl/lctl.html, and supplemented by interviews of individuals selected by review of member-interest lists of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) and the American Association for Ukrainian Studies (AAUS), and AATSEEL's intensive language list clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~aatseel/intensive-programs/ukrainian.html. See also below, notes 8 and 11.
[2] Ukrainian Saturday Schools/parochial schools (Ridna Shkola, commonly transliterated in the diaspora as "Ridna Shkola") and Canadian Ukrainian-language bilingual programs will be discussed below.
[3] A separate list of individuals involved in Ukrainian language instruction in the U.S. and Canada has been made available as part of Ksenya Kiebuzinski's "Academic Directory for Ukrainian Studies in North America" which can be found at the website of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute www.huri.harvard.edu. This list also includes information on organizational and publishing contacts.
[4] Centered at the University of Kansas, the Ukrainian and Croatian Proficiency Project is establishing reading and listening proficiency standards and tests based on American Council for Teachers of Foreign Languages guidelines. These materials have not yet been published, although pilot materials have been distributed. (And, thus, my observation that published materials on Ukrainian pedagogy in the U.S. still do not exist.)
[5] CAL was preparing a report for the Department of Education on the state of lesser-taught languages in the United States. The report, entitled "Survey of Materials Development Needs in the Less Commonly Taught Languages. World Area Report: Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Language: Ukrainian," was issued in late 1993.
[6] Three textbooks geared toward college-level instruction were in general circulation: Humesky 1980, Slavutych 1987, and Struk 1982. (See descriptions below, 637 - 45). A fourth textbook, produced in Soviet Ukraine (Zhluktenko et al. 1978), was generally considered unusable as a primary text in the classroom. I am not aware of any American collegiate instructors who have used it or Slavutych 1990 in the past decade.
[7] One must be careful here to note that in Canada a number of professors of Slavic language and literature have traditionally concentrated on Ukrainian literature and language as part of their fundamental mandates. This is due to the fact that Ukrainian-Canadians were, until the 1980s, one of the larger ethnic minorities in Canada and, therefore, had a public presence and political clout that ethnic Ukrainians have never had in the United States. This also meant that the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS), which has quasi-governmental status through grants from the Province of Alberta, has acted to fulfill the mandates of Canadian law with respect to Ukrainian-English bilingual education. The Ukrainian Language Education Centre - associated with CIUS and the University of Alberta - creates readers and course materials primarily for elementary and secondary - school aged children. All of the major classroom-oriented grammar textbooks currently available have been produced in Canada. The incumbent of HarvardÍs Potebnja Chair of Ukrainian Language and Linguistics - the only professorship for Ukrainian language studies in the U.S. - has been highly supportive of the pedagogy - related efforts of others (including the present author), but does not concentrate in the field himself.
[8] Perspective must be maintained here to understand much of what follows. In 1993 there were possibly sixty-five students (I am certain no more than that) in the U.S. studying Ukrainian at the collegiate or graduate levels and more than one-third of these were students at HarvardÍs summer program. An MLA survey in 1995 indicated 89 students in post-secondary enrollment (see the description by Xueying Wang in Rifkin 1997). In 1998 there were approximately one hundred enrolled students, with the Harvard summer program number still at approximately thirty students. I would estimate the total number of practitioners and academics with a strong interest in Ukrainian studies in general at no more than five hundred for the entire United States.
[9] Among the outcomes of this fact are skimpy cross-references of topics and grammar subjects, short indices, glossaries with brief (if existing at all) grammatical descriptions of lexemes. Except for Derlycia (1993), the texts were edited and laid out to series standards. Instructors still have been using them in the classroom as either supplementary (usually in conjunction with Humesky 1986) or primary texts for course use and reference. DerlyciaÍs text appears to be a classroom oriented text that was pushed (not completely successfully) into a self-learner package (see materials discussion section below).
[10] There is a manuscript reader by Oleh Ilnytzkyj for intermediate students in use at the University of Alberta, but it has not been distributed outside that university.
[11] Ukrainian often is provided as an "on-demand" language; therefore, "programs" may represent the possibility of instruction, not regular yearly courses. A survey of individuals capable of Ukrainian-language instruction shows that there is more potential for instruction than has been realized in the last several years. The following lists include sites with actual instruction of students within a two-year period of the year cited. Informal tutoring is not considered, but might double the number of sites if not the number of students. 1993: Columbia University, Defense Language Institute (Monterey), Har-vard University (regular term and summer), Hunter College, LaSalle University, Ohio State University, Rutgers University, University of Michigan, Wayne State University. 1998: Columbia University, Defense Language Institute (Monterey), Harvard University (regular term and summer), Hunter College, LaSalle University, Ohio State University, Rutgers University, State University of New York at Buffalo, Texas State University at El Paso, University of Arizona, University of Michigan, UCLA, University of Kansas (Lawrence; regular term and summer), University of Pitts-burgh (intermittent regular term and summer), Wayne State University, Yale University.
[12] I was informed in the summer of 1998 that the first three instructors had been certified as testers, but that the protocols for certification had not yet been worked out between them and ACTFL.
[13] With the caveat that several unpublished dissertations have appeared in the past decade, including Hursky 1994, which is formally a textbook, but still represents pedagogical materials development, and Wynnyckyj 1993, which highlights the difference between the American and Canadian situations. The journal Ridna Shkola has published on issues of Ukrainian language teaching at the Ridna Shkola level for eighty years - but the emphasis is on elementary and secondary education with heritage speakers. Otherwise, I have seen no published article in a Slavistics journal that deals, broadly or otherwise, with Ukrainian language pedagogy in an American setting. This reinforces the professional insularity of American Ukrainian language instructors. With regard to reviews, there are two university-based Ukrainian-studies journals in North America: Harvard Ukrainian Studies (Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University) and the Journal of Ukrainian Studies (Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta and University of Toronto). HUS has reviewed only one pedagogical resource since 1993. JUS has reviewed four.
[14] Retitle of journal Ukrajins'ka mova i literatura v shkoli (Kyiv), an organ of the Min-istry of Education for elementary and secondary education. It emphasizes problems of Ukrainian language in the Ukrainian classroom. Issues of orthography and usage often are prominent.
[15] Originally published out of Jersey City. Note that the Ukrainian pedagogical journal Radjans'ka shkola (Kyiv) was renamed Ridna shkola in 1991.
[16] See, for instance, post-independence discussions in Literaturna Ukrajina and, especially, Dyvoslovo.
[17] For example, only political history explains the prevalence of Polonisms in some current prescriptive articles (in Ukraine) as "true" Ukrainianisms to replace "Russisms" (which may actually be Ukrainian forms of very long standing).
[18] This slowly is changing in the post-independence era. I take the issue of prejudice quite seriously as a major impediment in the field - even in 1998 - because I have frequently encountered out-of-the-blue anti-Ukrainian rhetoric from both ethnic Russians and Russocentric ethnic Americans. (I am not Ukrainian.) This has mechanical results, like the depression of enrollments. (For instance, an instructor at a major university discovered from students in 1998 that the departmental undergraduate advisor, openly hostile to the presence of Ukrainian in the department, had been telling them that they should not take Ukrainian if they were not heritage learners, since they would have no prospects with the language after graduation and it would not count as a departmental credit, which was untrue.) The fact that the simple teaching of Ukrainian equated with either radical chauvinism or some comical attempt to elevate "hillbilly" culture (a term I have heard used) is a sore point among Ukrainian instructors and colors any attempt at integrating the nascent Ukrainian pedagogical community into larger professional structures or attracting new professionals to the field. Historically, this prejudice served to reinforce the Ukrainian-American community's inclination toward isolation and is, I am convinced, one of the reasons why university-level pedagogy was never developed within non-emigre structures.
[19] I am indebted to Vera Andrushkiw, recently of Wayne State University and now at the US-Ukraine Foundation, for her discussions with me on this subject.
[20] As reported in Rifkin 1997. Wang's data are for 1995 and show 89 post-secondary students, versus 2,500 "heritage" enrollments (i.e., a 96.5% vs. 3.5% difference). The heritage data are from the 1995 Heritage Associations reports. Although Wang shows no data from the 1994 ACTFL survey for K-12 enrollments, some of the 2,500 heritage learners must be due to the Ukrainian-Catholic K-12 institutions located in Philadelphia, Detroit, and a few other cities. The rest likely are Saturday School enrollments or after-Church programs. The discrepancy between the two figures makes sense. Few post-secondary schools have Ukrainian-language programs to capture these students in the first place. There are only a few advanced Ukrainian courses offered for near-fluent students who want to work on, say, stylistics or business language.
[21] Wang (in Rifkin 1997) further discusses systemic differences between heritage pedagogy and materials and university-based situations. Her conclusions about the situation inherent to less commonly taught language classrooms (academic and heritage) - that is, the lack of organization; disincentives toward formal, publishable work; and the isolation of professionals teaching the language - generally confirm the conclusions of this paper. I would like to thank Benjamin Rifkin for bringing Wang's information to my attention.
[22] Harvard, with one of the best collections of Ucrainica in the country, has only a few dozen items that are readily identifiable and available by interlibrary loan.
[23] I am indebted to Halyna Hryn of Yale University for discussing this with me.
[24] Duravetz (1973) falls into this category. Although it is the most impressive and polished published Ukrainian grammar to date (in any country) it is not used because it so obviously is geared in content and pacing toward secondary-school students. Although I have not included it in the inventory below for this reason, it still represents a valuable and often overlooked resource.
[25] See Kiebuzinski (Academic Directory) for publisher contact information. Since the Ridna Shkola materials are not oriented toward the college classroom, they are not listed here. As well, these materials usually are more difficult to obtain. For an inventory and order instructions for materials published in the United States, the best contact is NTSh in New York. For Ridna Shkola materials published in Canada, I suggest contacting the Ukrainian Bookstore in Edmonton, Alberta. I also do not discuss in depth cultural materials. Most of my colleagues and I have taken these materials directly from the contemporary Ukrainian press, print advertising, ephemera, etc. Ukrainian music is becoming more accessible in this country; a few movies (e.g., A Friend of the Deceased) have been released in major cities; and increasing amounts of Ukrainian contemporary literature in translation has been published (e.g., Dibrova 1997; Hogan et al., eds., 1996; Andrukhovych 1998; Lysheha and Brasfield 1999). For a list of older materials in translation, see www.utoronto.ca/cius for Marta Tarnawsky's online bibliography. A good representation of Ukrainian cultural material (and kitsch as well) can be found through Yevshan Communications Corp. www.yevshan.com.
[26] As I was finishing the revision of this paper, I learned from Prof. Humesky that she also has prepared a videotape of Ukrainian television broadcasts with an exercise book that corresponds to it. I have not been able to review it. It also is available through Ohio State University Foreign Language Publications.
[27] Elementary Ukrainian 1 through Intermediate Ukrainian 1 are co-authored with Val Bolen; Intermediate Ukrainian 2 is co-authored with George Perfecky and Katherine Dowbenko; Advanced Ukrainian 1 and 2 are co-authored with Katherine [Kateryna] Dowbenko. Reading Ukrainian 1 is co-authored by Katherine Rowenchuk and Ruth Shamraj.
[28] The OSU/FLP catalog at present lists only vols. 1 and 3 as being available.
[29] Struk was working on a computer-based set of exercises and lessons to complement the textbook before his untimely death in 1999. The work is being continued at the University of Alberta by Alla Nedashkivska.
[30] A grammar by Natalia Pylypiuk exists in preparation at the University of Alberta, but I have not been able to examine it and it is not currently for distribution.
[31] Adapted from DeLossa, Koropeckyj, Romanchuk, and Mason 2000.
[32] Several high-ranking Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials have confirmed this. This trend was solidified by the transformation of Ukraine's second president (elected 1994) Leonid Kuchma; he was largely Russophone as a candidate and has been exclusively Ukrainophone as the president.
[33] For instance, Serbens'ka et al., eds. (1994), which is a thoughtful usage guide, begins with general guidelines on etiquette and social graces - de-Sovietizing homo Sovieticus.
[34] Nimchuk (1999) is a preliminary attempt to create a new national standard. Unfortunately only 100 copies were printed, so that it is difficult to obtain.