An interview about the Serbian language

PELC (Personalised English Language Courses) uncovers the truth about e-word

PELC (Personalised English Language Courses) is an online language school that concentrates on teaching English through a method custom made for each student. Behind the idea is Steven Krajewski, an English language teacher with over ten years of experience.

But where’s the connection with e-word, you may ask. It’s all quite simple. Steven used to learn Serbian with e-word, and quite successfully for that matter. Whether it is his determination, the background in philology, or his knowledge of the Polish language that made it possible for him to learn Serbian so quickly, it is hard to tell, but the results are there. This experience has brought us together and I am happy to have been a part of his learning path.

About a week ago, Steven had an idea. He decided to write a blog post about his perception of the Serbian language and to interview me (Ivana Marinković) about the language and e-word.

 

If you are interested in these topics, take a look at the questions and read the whole interview here.

  1. Describe how your language school e-word came into being and how it’s evolved over the years
  2. One book really had an influence on my mindset with regard to learning and teaching languages – The Lexical Approach: The State of ELT and a Way Forward, by Michael Lewis. Looking back, were there any teachers, professors or books which had an impact on your approach to language learning and teaching?
  3. Would you say your teaching style is the same for both the English and Serbian languages, or do structural and lexical differences between the languages call for a different approach?
  4. Most native speakers of a language tend to say that the grammar of their own language is “not too difficult” to master. How objective are you when it comes to the difficulties associated with learning Serbian grammar?
  5. Do you try to gently acquaint your students with the Cyrillic alphabet, even if they’re primarily focused on speaking Serbian? Would you agree with the essence of this article – that Cyrillic is “on life support” but not dead yet?
  6. Are there many distinct dialects and accents in Serbia? What are some of the characteristic features of the Serbian spoken in your city, Belgrade?