Bekar, Mira

Richard writes: Mira’s connections with the LTE group have their genesis in a project for which former LTE colleague Teresa O’Brien was a consultant. This linked LTE with the university in Skopje where Mira works, and through this project,  Mira visited Manchester for a study visit way back when …. this was all before she gained her doctoral place at Purdue. Her PhD topic connects in some ways with an ongoing interest in Computer-Mediated Intercultural Communication (CMIC) shared by some of those in LTE (Diane, Susan, Richard) and by members of this community (Magdalena, Neny, Rachel). Now (April 2011) that the initial WordPress orientation session has taken place, I hope that we will be seeing more from Mira in coming times 🙂

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Thank you Richard for giving me the opportunity to contribute to this doctoral community.

Yes, I met Richard in 2005,when I had a chance to visit Manchester University for 10 days. It was a professional development program sponsored by the British Council, Macedonia. Together with prof. Teresa O’Brien we (my Macedonian colleagues and I) developed  a 4-year curriculum for undergraduate writing courses. My interest in second language writing sprouted from this project and here I am now at Purdue University majoring in Second language studies/writing and Applied linguistics.

Some more academic background about me:

I am a third-year PhD student in the Second Language Studies
program at Purdue University, USA. I earned my BA in English
Language and Literature and my MPhil (Linguistics) from Sts Cyril and
Methodius University, Macedonia. Till present day, I’ve been teaching speaking, reading, grammar and writing in L1 and L2 English courses for 9 years. Apart from being employed at Sts Cyril and Methodius  University as a senior language instructor, finishing my PhD in the States and publishing few articles in Macedonian on second language writing curricula design and language attitudes, I do socialize a lot. My research interests vary from discourse analysis and second language writing to exploring the relationship between language, social interaction and culture. My social interests vary from dark chocolate, traveling to music.

Here are some of my conference presentations and publications:

“L2 Writers’ Perceptions and Realization of Academic Identity in RAs.” Mei-Hung Lin and Mira Bekar. INTESOL, Indianapolis, IN, November 2010.

“Stance, Discourse Topic, and Listener’s Level of Likability: Evaluative Reactions to Japanese Speakers of English.” Sixth Conference on Intercultural Rhetoric and Discourse, Atlanta, GA, June 2010.

“All Cultures BIG and small” – A “hot topic” roundtable. Mira Bekar and Kyle Mcintosh. Graduate Symposium on ESL Research at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, April 2010.

“Self-reported Problems of L1 and L2 College Writers: What can writing instructors do?” 7^th TALGS Conference, East Carolina University, NC, February 2010.

“Self-reported Problems of L1 and L2 Student Writers.” ESL Graduate Symposium at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, April 2009.

Who is YOU”? Who is WE?” Sidury Christiansen and Mira Bekar. Symposium on Second Language Writing, Nagoya, Japan, September 2007.

Publications

(English title: “Written Discourse of NESs and NNESs: Factors which Influence Text Comprehension”). Annual collected works at the Faculty of Philology 35 (2010-2011), Skopje, R. Macedonia: Filoloshki Fakultet, 2010-2011.

“Communicative Function of Language and the Sociolinguistic Component ‘Expressing Opinion, Agreement and Disagreement’.” Annual collected works at the Faculty of Philology 32 (2007-2008), Skopje, R. Macedonia: Filoloshki Fakultet, 2007-2008.

“Writing University Project.” Mira Bekar, Margaret Reid and Anastazija Kirkova-Naskova. Annual Collected Works at the Faculty of Philology 30 (2004-2005), Skopje, R.Macedonia: Filoloshki Fakultet, 2004-2005. 233-235.