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William J. Comer


2134 Wescoe Hall
785-864-2348
wjcomer@ku.edu
Curriculum vitæ: PDF

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

Position: Associate Professor, Chair, and 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

Forthcoming article: "The Role of Grammatical Knowledge in Reading for Meaning in Russian," Slavic and East European Journal. 56.2

Forthcoming article: "Communicative Language Teaching and Russian: The Current State of the Field" in Russian Language Studies in Canada and the USA: The New Focus, Veronika Makarova, ed. Anthem Press.

2011 article: "Processing Instruction and Russian: Further Evidence is IN" with Lynne deBenedette, Foreign Language Annals 44.4 (Winter 2011): 646-673.

2010 article: "Processing Instruction and Russian: Issues, Materials, and Preliminary Experimental Results," with Lynne deBenedette, Slavic and East European Journal 54.1 (2010): 118-146.

2009 article: Mind the Gap: English L2 Learners of Russian and the Null Possessive Pronoun. Russian Language Journal, Vol. 59, 2009, pp. 79-99

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


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