Visiting Fulbright scholar Gabriela Lojová's golden rule is that teachers have to adapt to the learner.

"Everything achieved in the classroom eventually depends on what goes on in the learner's mind," said Lojová, a faculty member of the English Language and Literature Department at Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. "The teacher has to first learn the learner's mind. Only then can teaching be effective."

An English language teacher trainer, Lojová teaches linguistic grammar, specializing in second language acquisition and the psychology of language learning and teaching. She is at Montclair State this semester as a visiting scholar teaching "Methodology of Teaching English as a Second Language" through the Linguistics Department.

Her stay is longer than her visit three years ago when she was here for three weeks, observing classes, talking with faculty and students and lecturing on language teaching in Europe. In addition to teaching this semester, Lojová presented a lecture and has made herself available to students outside the classroom. "Her visit is part of a true exchange," explained Eileen Fitzpatrick of Linguistics. "While she is here, Dr. Mary Call from our department is teaching at Comenius. We're looking forward to hearing her experiences soon."

Teaching in the United States, Lojová said, is a challenging experience. "The opportunity to teach in a different educational environment and to work with other colleagues has enabled me to learn more about different mentality, teaching approaches and practices, intercultural differences and teaching materials from the United States," said Lojová.

She's learned something about American students as well. "My students back home are a homogeneous group, but students at Montclair State are diverse in every possible way: age, natives and non-natives, teachers and non-teachers, teachers who will stay and teachers from other countries who will go back," she said. "Students here are hardworking, they are prepared, they read the material and they respond in the classroom. They discuss. They question. I know of several Fulbright scholars who don't teach. But I wanted to teach because I love the students. I love that social contact, interaction and motivation."

Lojová spends a lot of time in Sprague Library searching for data that will support her theories in developing a new model of teaching language techniques. She intends to prepare a set of activities for teachers to give their students.

"Years ago teaching focused on teachers," Lojová explained. "Learners brought up in the older more traditional language techniques are full of grammar rules, but when it comes to speaking they can't communicate. The approach I take in teacher training is communicative learning. However, the traditional method of teaching English as a second language is still dominant. To solve this problem it's necessary to find a new model. The one I'm working on is based on a different process with fewer rules but more practice of those rules, making response automatic."

After observing several traditional theories of learning language, Lojová has found that the method of learning a second language often boils down to motivation and environment. "An immigrant learning English in the United States needs it to survive," she said. "In my country English is a foreign language so learning it is not a matter of survival."

But the needs and motivation of Slovakians to learn English shifted after the Soviet Union crumbled. "Before 1989 it was mandated that students learn Russian," she explained. "After that, students were free to choose, and no one chose Russian. There was a rapidly growing demand for English because they were motivated by the ability to travel and communicate through the Internet, but primarily to find good jobs, and part of that was to speak English."

When Lojová returns to Slovakia in May she will begin to analyze the information she's gathered here. She hopes to return to Montclair State in the future to continue her research.

"Dr. Lojová is an excellent student of other cultures, going everywhere she can and absorbing as much as she can," said Fitzpatrick. "She attends department and college meetings and has interesting observations on the amazing number of similarities between academic life here and in Slovakia. I am looking forward to a continuing exchange of ideas and resources after she returns to Comenius."

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