Other Language OER at KU

Over the last decade, the language faculty at KU have created a wide range of Open Educational Resources (OER), loosely defined as teaching and learning materials distributed to the public at little or no cost.  This work takes place within a broader university focus on Open Access that can be traced back over twenty years and was codified in 2010 when the Faculty Senate passed a resolution declaring that “[t]he faculty of the University of Kansas (KU) is committed to sharing the intellectual fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible and lowering barriers to its access".  KU’s strong commitment to Open Access can also be seen in the Libraries’ 2016 OER Grant Initiative, which supports the adoption of OER on campus, and a Provost-level Textbook Working Group focused on the broader issue of textbook affordability.  The Open Language Resource Center is, as such, the logical evolution of years of institutional investment in Open Access and the abiding commitment of the faculty at the University of Kansas to promote the study of languages.

Bosnian / Croatian / Serbian

• Supplementary Materials for Svašta u Mojoj Glavi. Structured intermediate-level materials to facilitate reading Miro Gavran's young-adult novel about life in the Croatian countryside. Includes extensive glossing and annotation as well as comprehension questions and various other activities to engage the learner in a more in-depth examination of the text and its language.

French

• Au Boulot! A beginning-level college French program consisting of two textbooks and four workbooks with an accompanying audio supplement and reference grammar guide.
• Chapeau!. A beginning-level college French program consisting of a textbook and workbook with accompanying audio exercises.

German

• Medianstunde. Online activities with downloadable worksheets with thematics suitable for any introductory German curriculum.
• Deutsche Grammarfon. Online activities for introductory German that teach grammar through an exploration of popular music - includes video explanations and computer-graded exercises.

Haitian Creole

• ChitaPa Bay. Readings in elementary Haitian Creole focused on an abridged version of Jacques Roumain's novel Mèt Lawouze but also includes proverbs, jokes, folktales, riddles, and an illustrated dictionary.
• Haitian Creole - English / English - Haitian Creole Medical Dictionary. A bilingual medical dictionary of approximately 12,000 words intended specifically for English-speaking physicians, dentists, nurses, and paramedics treating Haitian patients.  One of three sources for the Ultralingua Haitian Medical Reference Guide app.
• Haitian-English Medical Phraseology. A compendium of 1,300 questions, answers, and instructions collected during the course of several hundred medical interviews in rural Haiti. One of three sources for the Ultralingua Haitian Medical Reference Guide app.
• Survival Creole. A brief, practical guide for speakers of English in Haiti on a short-term basis.  Includes common phrases for introductions, asking directions, making purchases, dining in a restaurant, and discussing illness.
• Ti Koze Kreyòl: A Haitian-Creole Conversation Manual. A tongue-in-cheek story of boy meets girl (in Haitian Creole class!), and of their honeymoon adventures and misadventures across the Haitian scene.

Persian

• Tajik Persian: Readings in History, Culture and Society. Advanced-level reader for students seeking to develop reading proficiency in Tajik using authentic texts focused on the history and culture of Tajikistan.

Portuguese

• Baticum! Curso avançado de português brasileiro, língua estrangeira, a partir de textos da MPB.  A textbook for advanced learners of Brazilian Portuguese focused on topics of advanced grammar in the context of exploration of Brazilian popular music.

Quichua

• Imanalla: An Introduction to Kechwa. A complete curriculum for an introductory Quichua program providing basic reading, writing, speaking, and listening activities as well as exposure to Quichua culture.
• Kechwa Stories. A collection of short passages in Kechwa with accompanying comprehension questions and audio intended for students at the beginning level of learning the language.
• Kechwa-English-Spanish Trilingual Dictionary. A trilingual dictionary with parallel entries for Kechwa, English, and Spanish. An online version of the dictionary with audio should be released shortly.

Russian

• Между нами: An Interactive Introduction to Russian! A complete curriculum for beginning Russian consisting of an online textbook, two classroom workbooks, and two homework workbooks. Winner of the 2016 Access to Language Education award from the Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium and the 2017 Best Book in Pedgogy from the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages.

Slovene

• Short Reference Grammar of Standard Slovene​. A reference grammar of the Slovene language designed for advanced-level language users and linguists to compare semantic categories across languages​.

Somali

• English-Somali Dictionary. An online dictionary with audio that allows searches in either language or by thematic category.

Spanish

• Acceso. An intermediate-level Spanish curriculum designed to promote the acquisition of Spanish and the development of cultural understanding of the varied groups of people who share Spanish as a common language. Winner of the 2012 Focus Award from the Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium. A complete revision of the curriculum is in process.
• El español en los Estados Unidos. Supplementary materials for beginning-level Spanish that focus on issues of cultural identity of Spanish speakers in the United States.
• Palabras propias:La historia cultural del mundo hispanohablante a través de textos primarios.
• Para vivir con salud: leyendo la salud y la literatura. An introduction to close critical reading of Spanish-language literary and cultural texts, framed within themes relevant to the concerns of healthcare. 

Uyghur

• Greetings from the Teklimakan: a Handbook of Modern Uyghur.  An introductory textbook of the modern standard Uyghur language with exercises and extensive grammatical analysis and accompanying audio.