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William J. Comer

Office: 2137 Wescoe Hall

Telephone: 785-864-2348

E-mail:

Curriculum vitæ: RTF | PDF

Website: Personal web page

Degree: Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1993

Position: Associate Professor, Russian Language Coordinator

Teaching interests: Russian language, Russian language pedagogy and Russian culture.

Research interests: Russian language pedagogy and Second Language Acquisition (especially, task-based teaching, input enhancement and processing), Russian culture and intersections of Russian literature with Russian religious culture.

Selected recent publications

  • 2009 article: Mind the Gap: English L2 Learners of Russian and the Null Possessive Pronoun. Russian Language Journal Vol. 59 (forthcoming)
  • 2009 article: Processing Instruction and Russian: Issues, Materials, and Preliminary Experimental Results. Coauthored with Lynne deBenedette. Slavic and East European Journal 54.1 (forthcoming).
  • 2008 Edited book: Viktoria Tokareva's Den' bez vran'ia/A Day without Lying. A Glossed Edition for Intermediate-Level Students of Russian with Vocabulary, Exercises and Commentaries. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers and Companion Website.
  • 2007 article: Implementing Task-based Teaching from the Ground Up: Considerations for Lesson Planning and Classroom Practice. Russian Language Journal: 57: 181-203.
  • 2005 article: Language Curriculum Design: Rethinking Assumptions. AAASS NewsNet : 45.1: 9-12.
  • 2004 article: (co-authored with Meghan Murphy-Lee) Letter-Sound Correspondence Acquisition in First Semester Russian. Canadian Slavonic Papers : 46.1-2: 23-35.

Invited Workshop Presentations

  • 2007. Title: Approaches to Input in the Teaching of Russian / Podxody k iazykovomu materialu v prepodovanii russkogo iazyka kak inostrannogo. Presented in Russian at Inter-institutional Summer Immersion Russian Pedagogy Workshop. Middlebury College, Middlebury VT.
  • 2007. Title: Using Tasks Effectively in Teaching Slavic Languages. Presented at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.

Selected Grants and Awards

    External
  • IREX Advanced Individual Research Grant
  • U.S. Department of Education, Center for International Education Grant
  • American Association of Teachers Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) 2009 Award for Service to the Organization
    Internal
  • W.T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, August 2009
  • KU Center for Teaching Excellence, Award for Excellence in Teaching (nominated by SLL graduate students), April 2009

Prof. Comer receiving the Kemper Award from the Surprise Patrol