FACULTY PROFILE:
Dr. Jakob Patekar
"Engage with
the text!” Inspiring advice for young writers
July 16, 2020
Dr. Patekar’s
life started out interesting from the very first moment; he was born in New
Delhi, India, an exotic place of birth that often surprises his fellow
Croatians. Coincidentally, his last name, which comes from the north of
Croatia, is also a popular Indian last name (you might want to google Nana
Patekar, for example).
Dr. Patekar
describes himself as introvert, although he does admit that getting a teaching
job right after university forced him out of his shell. His first job was
teaching English to children from 6 to 14 years of age in a public elementary
school for 10 years, before joining RIT Croatia at the Zagreb campus in 2016.
Along the way he worked on many related projects, such as translating or
examining speaking at Cambridge ESOL exams. However, he considers his most
important professional achievement to be his participation in the team of
professionals who recently developed the new Curriculum of English that will
form the basis of teaching and learning English in Croatia in the years to
come.
His academic
background is a master’s degree in English Language and Literature and
Education Science (double major) from the University of Rijeka and a doctoral
degree in Language Teaching from the University of Zagreb.
Dr. Patekar
currently serves as RIT Croatia’s General Education Chair, supervising and
supporting faculty in several departments. But more important than his role as
an administrator, he says, is his role in the classroom, teaching Introduction
to Academic English, Critical Reading & Writing, and Writing Seminar. These
key courses form the foundation of students’ writing skills for their entire
educational career at RIT Croatia.
Dr. Patekar has
always been a fan of writing. "When I was a kid, and a typical introvert,
writing was like therapy to me, a way to express myself,” he said. "So much so
that a concerned teacher once called my parents to school because she found a
horror story.” His written work today is less shocking, as he only writes
articles for scientific journals.
For Dr.
Patekar, the most important thing in teaching writing is to show students that
writing is a two-way street. As writers, students need to be aware of who is on
the other side. Writing, he says, is not about what the author thinks the
message is, but how the reader interprets it. So, for him, reading, too, is an
interaction, even though one side cannot immediately reply. If you hear
students saying "Engage with the text!”, then you know they’ve just had
Critical Reading & Writing with Dr. Patekar.
Dr Patekar
works in Zagreb but lives in Rijeka and commutes each day to work. So, students
who come late to his class can’t blame slow tramways as an excuse. That just
won’t cut it because he’ll outplay them in the game of who lives farther away
or needs more time to get to the campus in Zagreb.
His students
would describe him as a strict professor in whose class you know when it’s time
to have fun and when it’s time to work. He confirms that he likes running a
tight ship, but adds that students are overall very positive about his teaching
style. His mission is not to show students that everyone can be a writer, but
that everyone already is a writer.
Iskusi
