The Future of Education
Snejina Sonina
Institution: University of Toronto Scarborough
Address: 1265 Military Trail, Department of Language Studies
Postal Code: M1C 1A4
Country: Canada
Snejina Sonina has been a part-time student and part-time professor throughout her academic career. She is now a part-time Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) and a part-time MA student at the Department of Classics at the University of Toronto.
In addition to her PhD in French Linguistics from the University of Toronto (2007), she holds several postgraduate degrees: a KN in Romance Philology (Herzen University), an MA in Medieval Studies (Central European University), and an MSt in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology (University of Oxford).
Snejina teaches mainly French Linguistics courses—Phonetics and Phonology, Morphology and Syntax, History of the French Language—but also counts Business French and French language courses among her offerings. In her language and linguistics classes, she explores computer-assisted methodologies and incorporates historical, cultural, and comparative elements to make learning more accessible, improve students’ understanding of linguistic phenomena, and broaden their cultural horizons. Her current research focuses on historical-comparative studies and didactics.
In 2021, Snejina licensed a new version of her Pictographic Phonetic Alphabet (PPA)—an alphabet representing sound articulation—and now is working on its applications in historical linguistics, language comparison, and, of course, in teaching pronunciation. All the pictograms representing the articulation of the phonemes corresponding to the IPA signs are available on her website https://ppa4ipa.com/.
In 2019, she was tasked with restructuring UTSC’s beginner French courses aimed at assisting students in their language learning by combining a technology-enhanced action-based approach with a solid foundation in linguistic theory. By 2022, this resulted in a new intensive curriculum adapted to large classes and an electronic textbook, French for the Smart, comprising ca. 1,000 exercises with ten questions each and each accompanied by a soundtrack or a video.
In 2017, Snejina won the UTSC Assistant Professor/Lecturer Teaching Award of the Year.
Areas of Expertise: Computer- and web-assisted phonetics and didactics; innovative and experiential pedagogy; historical and comparative linguistics; lexicology/terminology.
In addition to her PhD in French Linguistics from the University of Toronto (2007), she holds several postgraduate degrees: a KN in Romance Philology (Herzen University), an MA in Medieval Studies (Central European University), and an MSt in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology (University of Oxford).
Snejina teaches mainly French Linguistics courses—Phonetics and Phonology, Morphology and Syntax, History of the French Language—but also counts Business French and French language courses among her offerings. In her language and linguistics classes, she explores computer-assisted methodologies and incorporates historical, cultural, and comparative elements to make learning more accessible, improve students’ understanding of linguistic phenomena, and broaden their cultural horizons. Her current research focuses on historical-comparative studies and didactics.
In 2021, Snejina licensed a new version of her Pictographic Phonetic Alphabet (PPA)—an alphabet representing sound articulation—and now is working on its applications in historical linguistics, language comparison, and, of course, in teaching pronunciation. All the pictograms representing the articulation of the phonemes corresponding to the IPA signs are available on her website https://ppa4ipa.com/.
In 2019, she was tasked with restructuring UTSC’s beginner French courses aimed at assisting students in their language learning by combining a technology-enhanced action-based approach with a solid foundation in linguistic theory. By 2022, this resulted in a new intensive curriculum adapted to large classes and an electronic textbook, French for the Smart, comprising ca. 1,000 exercises with ten questions each and each accompanied by a soundtrack or a video.
In 2017, Snejina won the UTSC Assistant Professor/Lecturer Teaching Award of the Year.
Areas of Expertise: Computer- and web-assisted phonetics and didactics; innovative and experiential pedagogy; historical and comparative linguistics; lexicology/terminology.
