The HiT-1 E-Course

Ten Years of Successfully Teaching and Learning Croatian as a Foreign, Second, and Heritage Language

Abstract

This paper explores ten years of experience from the Croatian Internet Course (HiT-1) of the University of Zagreb developed for students who do not know Croatian at all or only know its basics. Using an e-learning system, Moodle Community (MoD) students discover, study and practice new content. An above-average dropout rate, associated with a sense of loneliness and insufficient interaction with the teacher and other students, is considered a major shortcoming of e-courses. To counteract this, HiT-1 offers individual live lessons twice a week. During them the e-content is repeated, practiced, and expanded through similar materials. HiT-1 students have pointed out in evaluations that live lessons led to successful attendance and completion, and thus to a very low dropout rate. In live lessons, students are exposed to Croatian from the beginning and use it in conversation with teachers; sometimes the teacher is the only L1 speaker of Croatian with whom they can speak Croatian. Finally, language acquisition is greatly influenced by regular, systematic monitoring of student activities in the MoD system, an individual approach, constant support, and encouragement, either by chat or in live lessons. So far 260 students from around 50 countries have attended the course, and more than 6,200 hours of individual live lessons have been held.