Fourteen attendees have enrolled in this year’s autumn e-course, and will follow the course and participate in it from their homes in the USA, Bolivia, Turkey, Argentina, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, France, Paraguay, Peru and Colombia. Four of the students are involved in the programme with the help of scholarships provided by the State Office for Croats Abroad.
The University of Zagreb, the Croatian Heritage Foundation and the University of Zagreb’s SRCE University Computing Centre have kicked off the eleventh round of the HiT-1 Croatian language internet course on the 14th of September, an on-line course teaching Croatian as a second and foreign language.
The HiT-1 Croatian internet course is the first university on-line course teaching Croatian as a second and foreign language in the Republic of Croatia, launched at the initiative of the CHF. The course is the fruit of the cooperation of the CHF, the University of Zagreb and its SRCE University Computing Centre, with the support of the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sport. It is an important project that allows people who are unable to travel to Croatia for instruction, or who have limited opportunities to learn Croatian in their country of residence, to learn Croatian. The course was in the development phase from 2009 to 2010 and had its first trial run in March of 2011.
To date the course has run without interruption and has been attended by seventy-six participants from twenty-five countries (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Ecuador, France, Greece, Italy, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, the USA, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Great Britain, Venezuela and Croatia) have attended the course.
The HiT-1 course is a form of distance learning, conducted via the e-learning system, and includes a mandatory 24 hours of classes with an instructor via the Internet (Skype and Webinar). It consists of seven instructional units that participants have a total of twelve weeks to master, in which they are assisted by experienced instructors and experts for Croatian as a foreign language Lidija Cvikić DSc, Marija Bošnjak BA, Maša Musulin BA and Zrinka Kolaković BA – also the authors of this unique programme. Instruction is interactive and the approach to learning the language individualised.
Fourteen attendees have enrolled in this year’s autumn e-course, and will follow the course and participate in it from their homes in the USA, Bolivia, Turkey, Argentina, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, France, Paraguay, Peru and Colombia. Four of the students are involved in the programme with the help of scholarships provided by the State Office for Croats Abroad.
The course runs through to the 6th of December 2015, when all those who pass the final exam will receive confirmation of their participation and a transcript of their grades from the University of Zagreb.
The organisers have already announced the next round of courses for the period from the 7th of March to the 29th of May of 2016, with more detailed information available at: www.matis.hr
Videos about the course can be found at the following web sites:
• Croatian language e-learning – CROnline
• Croatian language e-learning – Croatian public TV broadcaster news
Text by: Lada Kanajet Šimić