salta newsletter

TABLE OF CONTENTSPRESIDENT’S NOTE by Gautami Shah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 02REVISED ACTFL HINDI PROFICIENCY GUIDELINES by Vijay Gambhir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04HERITAGE LANGUAGE LEARNERS’ LANGUAGE TRAITS: A Case Study of Tamil Students Enrolled in University Level Language Classes by Vasu Ranganathan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04LEARNING AND TEACHING RESOURCES FROM THE HINDI–URDU FLAGSHIP by Rupert Snell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06LANGUAGE FOR HEALTH by Jishnu Shankar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07STUDYING HINDI by Richard Delacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08SAC EMBRACES STANDARDS–BASED INSTRUCTION by Shaheen Parveen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08MLA ENROLLMENT by Hannah Carlan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 REPORT: WORKSHOP FOR SPOKEN TAMIL by Radha Sankaran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11NEW INTERACTIVE LEARNER–CENTERED URDU AND HINDI TEXTBOOKS by Fauzia Farooki . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13REPORT: STARTALK 2011, Hindu and Urdu programs by Rajni Bhargava . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14SALTA 2011 AT NCOLCTL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

SALTA Newsletter FALL 2011–SPRING 2012

0302 SALTA Newsletter/Fall 2011–Spring 2012

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the another great issue of the SALTA Newsletter . As is apparent from the variety of contributions in this issue, 2010 & 2011 have been busy years for a number of our South Asian Languages . They also highlight how, despite the unique features of the various South Asian languages we teach, we have many shared goals and face similar challenges . I can see many of us nod in agreement while reading Vasu Renganathan’s article on heritage language learners, or S . Radhakrishnan’s report on the Tamil workshop he conducted . Shaheen Parveen’s report on embracing a Standards–based curriculum resonates strongly with current trends in language pedagogy and Rajni Bhargava’s summary of the various STARTALK programs of summer 2011 bears witness to the steadily growing interest in Hindi and Urdu from all sectors, ranging from funding agencies and centers, to parents, children and professionals in the field . Vijay Gambhir’s article on revised ACTFL proficiency guidelines for Hindi underscores both, this growing interest, as well as how the profession is moving towards performance–based instruction and assessment . The report on the “Language for Health” project highlights possible synergies that can be achieved by collaboration with coleagues across institutions and across fields . The initiative is a beautiful poster child for innovative language teaching and an expansion of South Asian languages into “languages across the curriculum .” Rupert Snell’s report of other material development projects underway at the Hindi–Urdu Flagship program at UT–Austin is another example of how active the field is . Short autobiographies like Richard Delacy’s note in this newsletter make for an interesting way of getting to know colleagues in South Asian language teaching . Hopefully this is the start of a new tradition in the Newsletter .

On the organizational front, in April 2011 we had the 2nd SALTA mini–conference in Madison, WI . The mini–conference was once again held jointly with the annual meeting of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL) . This year we had two exciting sessions in addition to the SALTA business meeting . The first session chaired by Fauzia Farooqui, had two presentations on heritage language learners, one by Rajni Bhargava and Nusrat Sohail, and the other by Swapna Swaroop . The third paper in that session was on

the role of a Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) in foreign language pedagogy presented by Prateek August, an FLTA himself . In the other SALTA session chaired by Shahnaz Hassan, Shaheen Parveen talked about developing a Standards–based curriculum, and Babu Suthar discussed issues related to the teaching of polite forms . The sessions were followed by the SALTA business meeting . Thanks to all members who supported the SALTA mini–conference as presenters and audience . Thanks also to all who joined us at the SALTA business meeting . I would also like to take this opportunity to thank NCOLCTL for their continued administrative and financial support to make the SALTA mini–conference possible . I would especially like to thank NCOLCTL Executive Director Antonia Schleicher and Assistant Director Nyasha Gwaza without whose support and encouragement our conference could not take place .

We have already started to organize a similar 2012 SALTA mini–conference . Please get involved . Also, if you participate in NCOLCTL, please definitely plan to join the SALTA business meeting . Most importantly, the meeting gives us a wonderful opportunity for informal exchanges . Even in this digital age with all the new social networking facilities, nothing can replace a meeting and gathering in person . This is what SALTA is about—creating a network and group of South Asian language educators . Many of us work and live in places that are far apart . Yet, when we meet once a year at the SALTA functions we immediately feel like a close group of colleagues again . I sincerely hope that SALTA can continue to generate this kind of virtual professional community for us .

With the increased interest in LCTLs and with many of our languages making it to the “critical languages” list, many institutions are currently building up new South Asian language programs or growing existing programs . Anchoring language programs within the university or school and making them an integral part of the student’s intellectual experience is a critical issue . Qualified faculty need to be hired and sound curriculum choices need to be made . However, the academic infrastructure and professional development opportunities are limited . Most language teaching positions lack job security . Curriculum choices are often made by administrators rather than the

faculty . This is problematic as some features are specific to SA languages . For example, SA language programs attract many heritage students . Importantly, this often includes false heritage students who have South Asian family background, but no exposure to the particular target language . Colleagues from outside South Asian language teaching might not fully be aware of the diversity that exists . This is but one example . An important part of our mission as the prime professional society for South Asian language teaching is to contribute to and shape discussion about related issues .

Also, budget cuts have forced many institutions to cut cost . It was disheartening to learn that listservs like hindi-t and tamil-t have been temporarily closed due to budget cuts . In such challenging times,it is all the more important that we work together and network through professional societies such as SALTA .

I know we are all busy in our own personal and professional lives, and so on behalf of the SALTA big thanks to all for your continued active participation and dedication to making our organization a success and a professional and intellectual home for many of us . I want to thank all our SALTA officers—past and present—who volunteer time and effort to work towards the goals of the society .

In the name of SALTA, I thank the outgoing executive board for their hard work and contributions and welcome Gyanam Mahajan as our new treasurer and Shahnaz Hassan the new at–large member on board . I am looking forward to a productive year in SALTA .

Last but not the least, a BIG thanks to Rajni Bhargava for editing the SALTA Newsletter (despite a very late president’s column!) . The SALTA Newsletter is an excellent means of staying in touch . The online publication facilitates a very flexible format . Please step up and get in touch with Rajni for anything that you might want to contribute to the Newsletter . I could imagine reviews of past activities, reviews of new materials, book reviews and also just any thoughts and editorials that might be of interest to SALTA members .

In the same spirit, please think of organizing other SALTA events or having SALTA as a co–sponsor for relevant events . Now that we have the SALTA conference slowly but steadily starting to take a life of its own, it is time we think of adding regional workshops, discussions or other events . The success of any society depends on its membership and I assure you that actively getting involved with SALTA will be a most fulfilling experience . Times ahead are promising and exciting—lets seize the moment!

With warm regards,

Gautami ShahPresident, SALTAgshah@austin .utexas .edu


Currently ACTFL Hindi Proficiency Guidelines for speaking and reading, which were first created in 1989 by a national committee of experienced Hindi teachers and scholars, are under revision . The revised guidelines will follow the structure of ACTFL’s 1999 version of Speaking Proficiency Guidelines and will reflect many years of Hindi testers’ experience of assessing heritage and non–heritage learners’ Hindi . The first draft of the revised speaking proficiency guidelines for Hindi is now ready and it will soon receive feedback from experts . The revised version presents the level descriptions of the proficiency levels in the descending order (Superior–Novice) unlike the previous version which is in the ascending order (Novice–Superior) . The descending order helps in highlighting the close relationship between High sublevels

and their next major levels . Further, the Advanced-Level is sub–divided into Advanced-Low and Advanced-Mid sub–levels in the revised version . This will help Hindi testers to measure the Advanced level performance more precisely in terms of quantity and quality of a speech sample .

ACTFL Hindi Reading Proficiency Guidelines are also being revised currently and its first draft will be ready in summer 2012 . The speaking and reading proficiency revision projects have been supported by the University of Pennsylvania and New York University respectively . The revision of Hindi proficiency guidelines was long overdue as the first version was created a little over two decades ago! The need to revise the Hindi guidelines became urgent in recent years due to increased

demand for tester training in Hindi–Urdu STARTALK teacher training programs . This need was imperative in the context of the profession (including the heritage schools of Hindi) moving towards performance–based instruction and assessment . Just last year, seven OPI workshops were conducted in the country for various groups of Hindi–Urdu teachers . The revised tools for measuring Hindi proficiency will better equip Hindi teachers and testers to gauge the performance of Hindi speakers and readers .

For further information, contact:

Dr. Vijay Gambhir ([email protected])

or, Dr. Susham Bedi ([email protected]).

REVISED ACTFL HINDI PROFICIENCY GUIDELINES by Vijay Gambhir

HERITAGE LANGUAGE LEARNERS’ LANGUAGE TRAITS: A Case Study of Tamil Students Enrolled in University Level Language Classes by Vasu Renganathan

Understanding of enormous amount of vocabulary, good listening skill, grasping the fast speech and so on are some of the traits that one can normally attribute to Heritage Language Learners (HLLs) . What may be termed as a ‘single track bilingual communication’, where the parents speak in the heritage language and the children respond in English in equal fluency is another familiar trait that one can observe invariably among many of the HL children . Tamil heritage students with a vigorous exposure to Tamil language from family excel mostly in aural skill, but fail to demonstrate equal skill in spoken and written Tamil . When these students attend language classes in a formal

environment, they tend to reproduce the spoken forms both in their speech and writing consistently, thus they are unable to distinguish between what constitutes to be the formal and informal varieties of Tamil . What is common among many HLLs is that the knowledge they acquire from informal environment is fossilized to an extent so they seem to restrict their domain within it without any possibilities for further extension . For them, learning a formal grammar and knowing the formal variety of Tamil do not show any impact upon their language use unless they are trained to specifically unlearn their informal knowledge of Tamil that they learned from social contexts and learn to

negotiate between spoken and written variety, a process that can be termed as ‘formalization of the knowledge of heritage learners’ .

SOCIAL AND REGIONAL DIALECTS OF TAMIL AND THEIR INFLUENCE UPON HLLS: Presence of many social and regional dialects in the Tamil language often entails the use of many spoken varieties among Tamil speakers . Thus, a possible scenario would be that the parents of HL students who attend Tamil language classes in Diaspora countries such as in the U .S ., Singapore, Malaysia, England etc ., may come from diverse family backgrounds in terms of their castes, dialects, social status and so on . Every caste group has a set of stigmatized lexical forms mostly influenced by regional variations . Thus, it is possible that a Brahmin Tamil speaker from the Madurai region may speak a different variety of Tamil than a Brahmin who is from Coimbatore region . Such variations may be noted in a number of different ways including intonation, lexical items, grammatical and cultural differences and so on . Not to mention the fact that the instances of inter–caste and inter–racial marriages among their parents in the Diaspora population also make the deciding factor for HL speech environment a very complex task . As each member of these parents might end up speaking a completely different dialect, choosing a common variety by HL student becomes a complicated phenomenon . Thus, given the fact that any given Diaspora Tamil population is heterogeneous in nature both in terms of their use of social and regional dialects, unlike any other language communities, it becomes impossible for Tamil to identify any particular speech context as relevant for heritage language acquisition .

HERITAGE LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (HLA) AND HL SPEECH COMMUNITY: A common question that arises in the context of heritage language teaching is how much of prior knowledge of language learned from family background is enough to label someone as a heritage learner, as opposed to a true beginner . This requires for one to closely look at the possible linguistic environments of HLLs where they grow up in Diaspora countries and scale them based on a number of criteria pertaining to their language acquisition habits . As far as Tamil is concerned, the most practical situation for Heritage Language Acquisition seems to be where both

parents speak Tamil at home and they both consistently and deliberately attempt to impart the knowledge of Tamil to their kids by various means . Some of such means include talking to their children regularly in Tamil despite their tendency to respond in English . Making them attend Tamil language community classes and even homeschooling regularly places their acquisition of Tamil to be at an appreciable level . However, despite such efforts, what seems to be common is that their fluency in Tamil is stopped at the level of comprehension . Their skill in speech and writing lacks in many ways prior to attending a formal class at university level . Some show a limited communicative skill, but mostly in incorrect intonation; some can read and write simple Tamil, but their ability to read and comprehend any advanced level of Tamil readings show many limitations . In majority of cases, lack of formal Tamil education among their parents also weakens considerably their language acquisition factor at home .

The other common category of HLLs of Tamil belongs to Sri-Lankan ethnicity . Tamil Sri-Lankans, who migrated in large numbers to other countries including Canada, England, Australia, France and U .S .A . etc ., mainly due to ethnic conflict contribute to a considerable number of second–generation students who attempt to learn Tamil in European, Canadian and American universities . Unlike the mainland Tamil heritage community whose dialects are mutually intelligible in most part, the intelligibility between Sri-Lankan Tamil dialects and main land Tamil dialects falls completely off the track, mostly due to extensive variations in lexical meanings, differences in intonation, presence of new grammatical patterns, and so on . In such circumstances, for any Sri-Lankan based HLL, learning the variety of Tamil in any Diaspora country would seem like learning a foreign language, unless otherwise the curriculum is exclusively designed for their need in Sri-Lankan Tamil dialect and taught by a Sri-Lankan Tamil instructor . For this reason, in some of the educational institutions such as University of Toronto, Canada, Goldsmith college, London etc ., where there is a heavy population of Sri-Lankan Tamil immigrants, preference is given for Sri-Lankan Tamil instructors as opposed to someone from Tamil Nadu . Needless to say, this is an entirely unrealistic expectation in most other places such as U .S ., Singapore, Malaysia etc ., where the immigrants are mostly dominated by speakers from Tamil Nadu .


Yet another category of Tamil HLLs, who can conveniently be called as a fall–back category, belonging to the type of those whose motivation falls far less than the other two groups as discussed above . These groups with a very limited amount of HL exposure from home and their community show their language traits almost similar to any TBL . The reason being that either one of their parents is belonging to another ethnicity—either from Indian origin or of English origin; their parents converse with them mostly in English but with limited Tamil; or for them not having any opportunities to attend to any community schools . Practically speaking, these students do not demonstrate a Tamil language skill that can be attributed to belonging to a HLL, nor can they be treated as belonging to Tamil heritage except for their biological relatedness . The main reason for these students to sign up for the university level Tamil language classes is due to their personal affinity in their own ethnicity and Tamil lineage .

Given this diverse nature of Tamil language learners at university level Tamil language classes, a need arises to pursue a field of study that exclusively explores the linguistic behaviors of HLLs as against TBLs so as to develop appropriate curricula to cater the needs of both of these two categories of learners on the one hand, and many subcategories within HLLs on the other hand . Typically, though, due to issues related to poor enrollment in Tamil classes in US universities—usually between five and fifteen students—as opposed to forty to fifty students in comparable classes including Japanese, Chinese, Spanish etc ., it becomes impractical for one to offer separate classes to meet the needs of individual group of HLLs, nor can one offer separate instruction among HLLs and TBLs .

LEARNING AND TEACHING RESOURCES FROM THE HINDI–URDU FLAGSHIP by Rupert Snell

The Spring 2010 Newsletter contained a report on the hindi spoken thesaurus, an online learning and teaching resource developed by the Hindi–Urdu Flagship (HUF) at the University of Texas at Austin . This resource, available through HUF’s website and in podcast format on iTunes, has proved popular with Hindi learners, especially those who are learning on their own . The spoken thesaurus and the others materials mentioned below are made possible by the outstanding work of HUF’s Hindi–speaking Media Coordinator, Jonathan Seefeldt .

Following the success of the spoken thesaurus, the same team of HUF Director Rupert Snell and student assistant Neha Ladha has developed a new resource called glossaries alive, which breathes life and interest into the often dull task of acquiring vocabulary . Each of the 18 ‘episodes’ is based on a unit glossary from Snell’s Teach Yourself Hindi (which, incidentally, is about to be re-launched with some modifications as Complete Hindi), giving the learner an opportunity to hear the word pronounced and

then put through its paces in a number of ways: nouns are pluralized, verbs are set to work in real clauses and sentences, adjectives are used to qualify a range of different subjects, and so on . As each Hindi word or phrase is spoken, it appears on–screen in Devanagari, making this a useful aid in the recognition of words and in learning to spell; however, the glossaries alive feature also works well as an audio–only resource, useful for listening to while driving, jogging, painting the ceiling . . . or whatever . So far, 12 of the 18 Glossaries are published; the remaining six have been recorded and will shortly join the others on the HUF website at http://www .hindiurduflagship .org/

A third resource in this HUF set of materials, drilling for fluency, is currently in production: it is a series of language drills featuring a collaboration between Rupert Snell and UT graduate student Shilpa Parnami . This, inshallah, will be the subject of a report in a future edition of this Newsletter .

The report in the earlier newsletter mentioned another new project, ‘Hamari Yaden’, based on Hindi autobiographies . This, alas, did not make it off the drawing board: the planned mode of presentation turned out to be too time–consuming to execute (gradually one learns the benefits of simplicity of design!) . However, a phoenix is rising out of these ashes: Rupert Snell is now developing a Reader in Hindi Autobiography, which will be in book format but will be accompanied by audio resources . A sample chapter will be shown on the HUF website soon .

Hindi learners with a taste for pre–modern poetry may like to visit Snell’s braj in brief: an introduction to literary braj bhasha—a user-friendly overview of Hindi’s most important ‘medieval’ dialect . This brief tour of the language and its poetic conventions uses examples taken from the works of the poet Vrind, a 17th-century master of the doha couplet .

The language for Health Project is an initiative of the Hindi-Urdu Flagship program at the Univ . of Texas at Austin, funded by a grant from the NSEP . The aim is to create pedagogical materials which can be used by students and professionals in imparting knowledge about the nature of language use in the field of health practices in South Asia .

The site, http://dev .laits .utexas .edu/hindiurduhealth/ is developed by University of Texas, the principal investigator in collaboration with New York University and Columbia University . The site is a comprehensive collection of resources and provides opportunity to develop communication skills in Hindi and Urdu languages at the advanced and superior level within the context of Healthcare and Medicine . The site can be used by students entering the field

of medicine and is also for established medical professionals . The learning units are designed with the goal to practice language at the advanced and superior levels .

Three different sections provide an overview of the Health care system in South Asia . The medicine section explores the parallel systems of medicine, like Ayurveda, Unani and Allopathy . Knowing some of the language of the system can help students understand the patients better and in understanding of diseases and treatment better .

Health care section highlights some of the language of personal health care issues which are very different from the west in terms of nutrition, hygiene, dentistry and demographics with reference to gender, age and area . An attempt is made to show the

kind of language which is used to talk about them .

The public health issues look into the issues related to public health, specifically illness and advocacy with special relevance to Aids, alcoholism, substance abuse etc ., NGO’s with health related foci, health education, ethics and culture and issues of Medicare and insurance . The language which is used in talking about the public policy and social issues related to South Asia health concerns specifically are the main focal point of this section .

The endeavor of this project is not to teach either the science of health or intricacies of various medical practices . The focus is on the language aspect of the practice of medicine in South Asia amongst the South Asian Diaspora .

LANGUAGE FOR HEALTH by Jishnu Shankar


STUDYING HINDI by Richard Delacy

I began my studies of Hindi in the 1990s while at college in Melbourne, Australia, convinced of the importance of studying a foreign language as a way to understand more fully another culture and its peoples . I was extremely fortunate to have a wonderful, incredibly devoted teacher, and firmly believe that this is a critical component of any language program . I studied Hindi formally for three years, and then did a year at the Central Hindi directorate in Delhi, before returning to Australia to begin teaching . Since then, I have traveled to India for close to two decades, and continued to teach in various academic institutions, both in Australia and the US . In addition to this, I have been fortunate to have produced numerous pedagogical materials, including a recent comprehensive introductory textbook, Elementary Hindi (2010) . The opportunity to teach Hindi, Urdu, and other South Asia related courses, including a course on Bollywood cinema, as well as to travel to India over perhaps the most exciting period in its recent history, have been some of the most rewarding aspects of this journey . Teaching in particular has been critical to my development . There is no better way to learn a language than to have to make sense of it to assist others as they learn

it . The other remarkable aspect of this journey is having been able to witness the amazing transformation of South Asia, particularly the urban world of north India, over the past two decades, which includes the transformation of South Asia’s modern languages . The language that I began to learn almost twenty years ago has evolved in the most dynamic manner over this period . It is the language of close to half of the population of India, with multiple registers, something that makes it incredibly rich in variety and in cultural production . I have learned over my years of teaching that the most important pedagogical lesson is to make the language come alive for students, so that they can appreciate its complexity, the tremendous diversity and variety of ways in which the language is employed, without becoming overwhelmed by this . There is no scientific method to teaching a foreign language, other than ensuring that students are never overwhelmed with too much information, either in terms of grammar or vocabulary . If students possess a keen desire to learn, they will do so regardless of the materials or the approach . At some point, students should also be encouraged to go to India to experience Hindi in context .

SAC EMBRACES STANDARDS–BASED INSTRUCTION by Shaheen Parveen

The South Asia Center has recently initiated curricular changes reflective of new approaches to standardized language teaching and pedagogy in the South Asian language courses at Penn . Incorporating ACTFL Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century, the South Asia Center has committed to providing training to all instructors of South Asian languages at Penn for: 1) developing a standards–based curriculum and thematic units, and 2) conducting rigorous performance–based assessments . As part of its ongoing effort to encourage and sustain high–quality language instruction, on October 31, 2010, the Center sponsored a workshop featuring Dr . Wafa Hassan of Michigan State University . Dr . Hassan discussed principles of

standards–based curriculum and provided hands–on practice for developing standards–based instructional units and performance–based assessment tasks . In the workshop, eleven instructors of South Asian languages discussed best practices in developing standards–based curriculum, reviewed ACTFL language proficiency levels, and familiarized themselves with the backward design templates and elements . All instructors are required to develop a sample standards–based lesson for their language by December 2010, and the Center will provide small grants for developing the new lessons into full units .

ACTFL’s Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century, provides an exciting

paradigm for both the teaching and assessment of foreign languages . Since their publication, however, these standards have predominantly been put into practice at the K-12 levels . Only recently have universities begun to adopt and adapt a Standards–based approach to their language curricula .

One may ask, what is innovative about standards–based foreign language teaching? Rather than relying on teacher–centered interactions, standards–based curricula emphasize student creation and the production of meaningful communication within cultural contexts . Students are taught to communicate in a variety of modes—interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational—and to work hands–on with authentic cultural materials . Such instruction ensures that learning occurs in the context of real–world situations, similar to ones that students would encounter in the target culture . Instructors facilitate this context–based learning by developing a lesson plan for their students with an end activity in mind, towards which each class period progressively lays groundwork . This pedagogical approach ensures that student assessment takes place in a situation that closely mimics real–world interactions, rather than through a de–contextualized testing of disparate grammatical concepts .

To facilitate our instructors in effectively making this change, the SAC provides instruction and support for each of our language pedagogues in the development of standards–based curricula . The four vital components of this support include:

1) Mandatory, interactive, language–specific workshops led by experts in the field, who guide our teachers through writing standards–based curricula;

2) Rigorous performance–based assessments that test students in the three modes of communication;

3) Quantitative and scientific assessments of instructors developed in partnership with the Penn Graduate School of Education . This research will assess the effectiveness of our instructors’ pedagogy .

4) Participation in national conferences, whereby instructors present their practices and research at academic conferences . The South Asia Center provides financial support for instructors who present at conferences .

In addition enhancing South Asian language instruction at Penn, the Center has added language teaching and pedagogy training to its outreach program . In the summers of 2009 and 2010, the Center hosted STARTALK programs for high school students to learn Hindi and Urdu, and a teacher training institute for instructors of Hindi and Urdu . The intensive high school Hindi and Urdu language programs were led by Dr . Shaheen Parveen and Rubab Qureshi, respectively, while Dr . Vijay Gambhir led the teacher training institute . Dr . Gambhir introduced the prospective teachers in to the standards outlined in Standards for Foreign Language Learning; while the high school students were taught Hindi and Urdu through curricular units modeled on these new standards .

Since I am a Caucasian, people always ask me, “why are you studying Hindi”. I have lots of answers. One answer is , lots of people speak Hindi, then why not me? This brings us to another question, In India when so many people speak English, what is the need for learning Hindi? My answer is that my two dear friends and my other friends speak Hindi and their relatives too, even if they speak English, then also there is a big difference between language for learning and language for talking to each other.

When my dear friend’s father recites a couplet of Ghalib and I can understand and feel it, then I know that learning Hindi is rewarding. From my point of view people who speak Hindi or grew up speaking Hindi, in their heart Hindi resides and I will be able to meet the rest of the half when I will speak Hindi.

Stud

ent R

espo

nse


Modern Language Association (MLA) presents its twenty-second survey in the series, describing trends in language course enrollments in fall 2009 (Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2009 . Nelly Furman, David Goldberg and Natalia Lusin, web publication, Dec . 2010) . Enrollments presented in this report are collected from a total of 2,514 AA-, BA-, MA-, and PhD-granting colleges and universities, representing 99 .0% of all higher education institutions offering languages in the United States .

According to the report there has been a significant growth of students enrolled in South Asian language classes at four-

year undergraduate institutions between 2006 and 2009 . In Hindi, there was an 18% increase of students, from 1,840 in 2006 to 2,114 in 2009 . Joint programs in Hindi-Urdu doubled over the three-year period, from 309 to 600 . Urdu did not show any improvement, and instead decreased by 2 .5% . Punjabi increased by 350 over three years . Nepali and Gujarati showed slight increases, where as Bengali, Marathi, Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu all decreased over three years . Sanskrit decreased in enrollment by 20% . Whereas many languages have increased at the undergraduate level, graduate level studies have not showed much improvement . Hindi decreased from 92 students to 54, Hindi-Urdu dropped from 84 to 34, and Sanskrit dropped from 155 to 107 .

MLA ENROLLMENT by Hannah Carlan

Below are the figures for course enrollments in South Asian Languages for the year 2006 and 2009 .

Languages 2006 2009 Bengali 94 97 Dari 104 17 Gujarati 18 11 Hindi 1,946 2,207 Hindi-Urdu 393 639 Kannada 2 3 Malayalam 18 19 Marathi 0 9 Nepali 28 44 Pali 2 2 Pashto 103 19 Punjabi 103 465 Sanskrit 607 483 Sanskrit, Vedic 5 16 Sinhalese 4 0 Tamil 100 97 Telugu 16 47 Urdu 344 377

REPORT: WORKSHOP FOR SPOKEN TAMIL by Radha Sankaran

The workshop for spoken Tamil conducted for two days, 12-13 March 2010 drawing Tamil instructors from various institutions in US and France devoted time to discuss some of the pressing problems of deciding what is ‘authentic’ spoken Tamil, and what is not, and perhaps in the process, help to pin down a more useful definition of ‘authentic language’ than an open-ended kind of authenticity might give . In recent years, it has become common to state that the Spoken Tamil language taught should have examples that are authentic rather than the kind of stilted and artificial language that sometimes have seen in the past . In the two days deliberations, first day nine presenters presented their papers on various issues in teaching spoken Tamil . Most of the content of the papers mainly focused Tamil teaching methodologies, materials and the variety that will be used to teach spoken Tamil . On the second day, participants actively engaged to workout strategies to teach spoken Tamil in US based on the presentations and discussions that they had .

For teaching spoken Tamil, issue of authentic or what it is called “standard” spoken Tamil was first and foremost issue . Here discussions were held to workout strategies to consider authentic spoken Tamil to teach in classrooms in US . The group discussed about authentic Tamil variety keeping communication as core element for authentic nature, as one can express their innermost feelings, especially spontaneously, whereas the literary language cannot serve this function because it tends to be stilted, highly complex, and used mainly in oration and or to work with classical Tamil or classical literatures . Therefore, communication aspect is kept as strategy .

Tamil has a continuous history of spoken-written differences from fifth century BC and it maintains the written and spoken forms, which are always found complementary to each other . Therefore, next, discussion focused on variety of dialects in Tamil before to decide authentic or standard spoken Tamil . The problem for teaching Spoken Tamil is that (1) there are different dialects of Spoken Tamil; (2) some of those dialects are stigmatized as being vulgar, coarse, non-standard or sub-standard; (3) or they are associated with certain social groups . Further,

in Spoken Tamil a number of phonological processes (v-deletion, palatalization, short-vowel deletion, nasal-cluster simplification, diphthong monophthongization, and nasalization) reduce a rather long verb phrase to a rather short one take place pose challenges for teachers of spoken Tamil to decide which one is authentic to put into the pedagogy of instruction . Therefore the workshop suggested narrowing down the range of ‘authentic’ speech to a form that avoids these problems, such that when learners use what the instructor taught them, no unwanted associations come to mind, and the communication can take place without issue . Schiffman (U Penn) who is an expert in the field of spoken Tamil said that there is a fixed definition of linguistic authenticity, and people can measure it exactly . Variety those are also not so colloquial as to be “non-standard” or felt to be even “sub-standard” because they evoke issues of ‘peculiarity’ (What variationists call ‘basilectal .’) . Are therefore ‘general’ enough in usage to arouse no commentary-native-tongue speakers do not ask themselves what sub-group the form is associated with . (‘Acrolectal’) . In other words, the forms we teach are authentic, but general enough to be widely understood everywhere in the speech community . The forms we teach are thus must be midway between stilted and artificial on one end of the spectrum, and colloquial, peculiar on the other end; this is another strategy arrived at . This strategy is accepted by all participants to adapt and use while preparing materials for spoken Tamil .

Discussion went around the need for a Database; one of the biggest problems in attempting to use Spoken Tamil in pedagogy is that there are no databases of corpora of the spoken language .

The discussions continued on next levels, the Intermediate and Advanced levels of spoken Tamil . As a result, suggestions to create more materials through a project to transcribe the sound tracks of Tamil ‘social’ movies, as many as can be obtained . Soundtracks of Tamil radio plays and TV sitcoms would also be useful, with the caveat that some of the material in these corpora would be problematical from the point of view of the depiction of certain social stereotypes through language . This is particularly true for

I like Hindi and India very much. I like Hindi because I love Indian music and language. I have made a friend from India. I want to be fluent in Hindi. I went to India this summer. I feel that India is a beautiful place, it’s music, culture, people and food. India seems like home. I want to speak in Hindi because I don’t want to be a foreigner. I have my friends there. I remember it quite often.

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characters other than the central figures (the `hero’ and the `heroine’), where ancillary characters mock non-standard dialect use in a definitely inauthentic way . Schiffman pointed out that there are also sound files recently digitized from Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India that have some interesting material on them .

Keeping all these as strategies in mind, the group discussed materials to be used from the beginning to advanced levels core materials . The group also discussed tasks that Tamil instructors wish to work on in a future series of Tamil workshops . The goal is the development of a task-based textbook that would be good for all levels, but particularly for Intermediate and Advanced levels spoken Tamil . These tasks could be modeled on lingua-folio’s “can-do” set-up . All felt, it is important to agree on what should be covered in

the book, but how individual teachers and learners use it is up to them . Learner can pick and choose from a variety of exercises at different levels based on themes . For each theme we will provide a vocabulary list and sample dialogues at various levels . It is important that at each level we are using authentic variety . Even if the students don’t understand why the grammatical forms are what they are, this doesn’t matter . They need to be able to repeat and use the forms in conversation, not necessarily analyze them . We need to offer flexibility for both students and teachers . Instead of memorizing dialogue, to avoid memorization suggestion was about a “choose your own adventure” format, where the student responses direct the turn of the dialogue, because so much learning comes from the unexpected and spontaneous . Also discussions were held about producing audio/video to go along with the book .

New parallel introductory Urdu and Hindi textbooks will soon be published by Georgetown University Press . Both textbooks are co-authored by Joshua H . Pien and Fauzia Farooqui of the University of Maryland . Below is the publisher’s description of Beginning Urdu: A Complete Course, which will be released in the fall of 2011 . Beginning Hindi will be published soon after and will follow a similar design .

Beginning Urdu is a complete first-year Urdu textbook designed to help learners acquire the language by actively using it in realistic situations . The book and its accompanying audio files on CD contain all that is needed to complete one full year of study, including clear explanations of language structures; useful, fun, and engaging activities; and an organizational format that makes it easy to chart student progress .

• Develops all four skills—listening, speaking, reading, writing—through a wide range of tasks and activities, including role plays, games, and short conversations

• Beautifully illustrated with full-color, authentic images and written in an accessible style

• Introduces the sound system and script of Urdu

• Organized around functional themes such as home and family, everyday life, the marketplace, personal responsibilities, and travel

• Features straightforward grammatical explanations and topically organized vocabulary lists for each of the 34 chapters

• Integrates cultural information within the thematic units and also presents culture through aphorisms, poetry, and photographs

• Provides an activity set for each unit along with review activities, including tips for increasing fluency and sets of questions to help personalize learning .

• Contains Urdu–English and English–Urdu glossaries

• Includes three appendices—Urdu numbers, additional grammatical structures for moving to advanced levels of proficiency, and a suggested syllabus

Beginning Urdu covers approximately 150 contact hours and is designed to bring learners to the ACTFL proficiency level of mid- to high-intermediate in all four skills . The book also serves as a valuable resource for independent learners .

NEW INTERACTIVE LEARNER-CENTERED URDU AND HINDI TEXTBOOKS by Fauzia Farooqui


Consortium of Illinois Language Schools (student)Chinese/Hindi Student Program• Chinese, Hindi / June 1, 2011 – August 30, 2011

Neuque Valley High School, Naperville, IL Naperville Central High School, Naperville, IL Downer Grove North High School, Downers Grove, IL Indian Trail School, Downers Grove, IL Heritage Lakes School, Carol Stream, IL Plainfield North High School, Plainfield , IL

• Startalk Nurture Program offers Chinese and Hindi Immersion courses in 6 school districts for total of 10 individual programs .

630-699-5726fredlu98@gmail .comhttp://www .cils .us

Educators Society for Heritage of India (student)

StarTalk Marlboro Hindi School Summer Camp• Hindi / July 18, 2011 – August 5, 2011• Marlboro Memorial Middle Schoool, Morganville, NJ• elementary to high school (age 9 to 15) students 732-972-1489ved .chaudhary@gmail .comhttp://www .marlborohindischool .org

HindiUSA, Inc. (student)STARTALK summer Hindi program - 2011• Hindi / July 11, 2011 – July 22, 2011• Sewell, NJ• aged between 12-14, in this two-week STARTALK Hindi

program at the Franklin Middle school856-582-5035devendra .singh@hindiusa .orghttp://www .hindiusa .org/

Howard Community College (student)Startalk Intensive Critical Language Learning Experience for Howard County Students• Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Persian /

June 27, 2011 – July 29, 2011• Howard Community College, Columbia, MD443-518-4861cberman@howardcc .eduhttp://www .howardcc .edu/admissions/apply/hsinfo/EarlyEntrance/startalk .html

Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District (student)Startalk Open Doors• Arabic, Chinese, Hindi • June 6, 2011 – June 23, 2011• Central Junior High School, Euless, TX • rising 7th graders 817-399-3379BhavaniParpia@hebisd .eduhttp://www .hebisd .edu/edge

Indiana University (student)STARTALK-SIPHUR 2011• Hindi, Urdu / June 27, 2011 – July 15, 2011• Residential Program• Bloomington, IN812-855-6697sh2@indiana .eduhttp://www .iub .edu/~indiast

Institute of Critical Languages and Cultural Exchange, Inc. (teacher)Critical language Thematic Units Design and Delivery in Context: What’s the 6Cs Got To Do With It?• Arabic, Hindi / May 16, 2011 – June 6, 2011• Days Inn Baton Rouge/Siege, Baton Rouge, LA225-229-0905 Ext . 1iclcehotard@gmail .comhttp://www .iclce .org

REPORT: STARTALK by Rajni Bhargava

STARTALK, a federally funded program by NSLI (National Security Language Initiative) is an initiative to increase the number of Americans learning the language and develop linguistic and cultural competency for the global age . STARTALK offers summer experiences that are engaging and creative, exemplifies best practices in language education and teacher training to meet the needs of the 21st Century . STARTALK participation has grown to over 5,000 students and over 1,500 teachers and the increase is reflected in the increase in number of STARTALK Hindi and Urdu programs . In the year 2008, nine STARTALK Student and Teachers Program were funded in Hindi and Urdu and in the year 2011, 24 in Hindi and 10 in Urdu were funded . The teacher training program and the students program, both are now working towards improving the programs and making it more creative,

engaging for the students, curriculum planning which is standard based and classrooms which are learner centered, selection and development of materials which are excellent and meaningful assessment of outcome . These programs are making a difference in communities and beyond that . To sustain these language programs, a combined effort is needed by the members of the community and the educators to initiate a dialogue as to the importance of learning another language in this day and age and having a parallel system of supporting the STARTALK funding . This needs support from parents, educators and other leaders of the community alike .

This has already helped in successful implementation of the Hindi and Urdu language in few schools and will see more in future .

Balodyan (student)STARTALK Summer Hindi Immersion Camp (BHASSHIC) 2011• Hindi / July 18, 2011 – July 29, 2011• Chinmaya Mission Chicago - Yamunotri, Grayslake, IL• 50 Students, ages 8 to 13 847-537-4710vidya@vyayam .comhttp://www .balodyan .com/

Balvihar Hindi School of Atlanta (VHPA) (student)Atlanta STARTALK Hindi Language and Culture Summer Camp 2011• Hindi / July 8, 2011 – July 17, 2011• Berkmar High School, Lilburn, GA• 100 middle and high school students. 770-962-2669msrtiwari@gmail .com

Center for Applied Linguistics (teacher)STARTALK Proficiency Assessment Training Program• Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese,

Russian, Swahili, Turkish, Urdu / May 14, 2011 – September 30, 2011

• Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC• This training program combines online and face-to-

face workshop formats to provide training in language assessment .

202-355-1519lthompson@cal .org

STARTALK 2011 – Hindi and Urdu Programs


UCLA Center for World Languages (teacher)Startalk: Heritage Language Teacher Workshop• Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese,

Russian, Turkish, Urdu / July 17, 2011 – July 22, 2011• Residential Program• UCLA, Los Angeles, CA310-825-2510okagan@humnet .ucla .eduhttp://www .nhlrc .ucla .edu/events/startalkworkshop/2011/

University of Pennsylvania (teacher)STARTALK Excellence in Leadership Summer Institute• Chinese, Hindi, Persian, Turkish, Urdu /

May 18, 2011 – May 22, 2011• Residential Program• University of Pennsylvania – PLC, Philadelphia, PA215-898-5573cefrei@sas .upenn .eduhttp://www .plc .sas .upenn .edu/elsi

West Windsor - Plainsboro Regional School District (student)STARTALK Hindi and Urdu Immersion Program• Hindi, Urdu / July 11, 2011 – July 22, 2011• Grover Middle School, West Windsor, NJ609-275-1968rb154@nyu .eduhttp://www .ww-p .org

Yuva Hindi Sansthan (student)Yuva Startalk Summer Hindi Camp 2011• Hindi / July 28, 2011 – August 6, 2011• Delaware Technical & Community College, Newark, DE856-241-7382dalia560@yahoo .comhttp://www .yuvahindisansthan .org

STARTALK 2011 – Urdu Programs

LaSalle II Magnet School, A World Language School (student)Startalk Urdu Language Camp at LaSalle II Magnet School• Urdu / June 22, 2011 – July 12, 2011• LaSalle II Magnet School, Chicago, IL773-534-0490 Ext . 48396nmaquino@cps .eduhttp://www .lasalle2school .com

The University of Pennsylvania (student)Univ. of Penn Startalk Intensive Urdu Program• Urdu / July 11, 2011 – July 29, 2011• Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA215-898-8817startalk-urdu@sas .upenn .eduhttp://www .sas .upenn .edu/summer/programs/highschool/startalk

Kean University (teacher)Kean STARTALK 2011: Hindi 2.0 (Teacher)• Hindi / June 13, 2011 – June 17, 2011• Residential Program• Union, NJ908-737-7134jjensen@kean .edu

Kean University (student)Kean STARTALK 2011: Hindi 2.0 (Student)• Hindi / June 20, 2011 – July 9, 2011• Union, NJ732-318-9891aojha2008@gmail .com

New York City Department of Education/Asian Languages & Bilingual Education Technical Assistance Center (ALBETAC) (student)STARTALK Summer HIndi Program for High School Students• Hindi / July 5, 2011 – July 29, 2011• Thomas A. Edison High School, Jamaica, NY• 212-666-1919 Ext. 2073smalhotra@schools .nyc .gov

New York University (teacher)Summer Teacher Training Institute 2011: Hindi and Urdu• Hindi, Urdu / June 13, 2011 – June 24, 2011• Residential Program• MEIS-New York University, New York, NY609-275-1968startalk .nyu@nyu .eduhttp://www .scps .nyu .edu/startalk

Northern Virginia Community College (teacher)

NOVASTARTALK Teacher Training Workshop• Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese,

Russian, Swahili, Turkish, Urdu / June 20, 2011 – July 8, 2011

• Residential Program• NOVA Arlington Center, Arlington, VA703-845-6325lfranklin@nvcc .eduhttp://novastartalk .nvcc .edu

Seattle Public Schools (student)Seattle Public Schools Startalk Program with Students• Arabic, Chinese, Hindi / June 28, 2011 – July 8, 2011• Aki Kurose Middle School Academy, Seattle, WA206-252-6211belau@seattleschools .org

Seattle Public Schools (teacher)Seattle Public Schools Startalk 5 Teacher Certification Program• Arabic, Chinese, Hindi / July 11, 2011 – July 29, 2011• John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence,

Seattle, WA206-252-6211belau@seattleschools .org

The Trustees of Indiana University (teacher)STARTALK-HUTEP 2011 (Hindi Urdu Teacher Education Program)• Hindi, Urdu / June 20, 2011 – June 24, 2011• Residential Program• Bloomington, IN812-855-6697sh2@indiana .eduhttp://www .iub .edu/~indiast

The University of Pennsylvania (student)Penn STARTALK Intensive Hindi Student Program• Hindi / July 5, 2011 – July 25, 2011• University of pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, PA215-898-7475shaheenp@sas .upenn .eduhttp://www .southasiacenter .upenn .edu

UCLA Center for World Languages (student)Startalk: Hindi for High School Heritage Students• Hindi / June 28, 2011 – July 28, 2011• UCLA, Los Angeles, CA310-825-2510lglew@international .ucla .eduhttp://www .hslanguages .ucla .edu/


SALTA 2011 AT NCOLCTL Friday, April 8th, 2011


UPCOMING CONFERENCES

The 3rd Annual Meeting of the South Asian Language Teachers AssociationHeld in conjunction with NCOLCTL 2012April 26-29, 2012(with pre-conference workshops scheduled for April 26th , 2012)Madison, WIhttp://acamedics .com/conference/ncolctl

SALTA 2012 Business Meeting Saturday April 28, 2012 / 3:30-5:30pmReflection CSheraton Madison HotelMadison, WIhttp://acamedics .com/conference/ncolctl

EDITOR’S NOTE

SALTA Newsletter has been a forum to discuss and exchange the news and information of latest happenings in South Asian Language pedagogy . The increased interest in LCTL’s and other South Asian languages has seen the growth of South Asian Languages program in institutions and strengthening of the existing programs . This makes it necessary for us to contribute to the newsletter . Contributions from members across all languages are important to achieve this aim so that the newsletter can reflect new developments as well as issues and problems encountered currently in the expanding field of South Asian Languages . SALTA is again soliciting submissions for the upcoming newsletters . In addition to current issues in the teaching of South Asian languages, submissions may include information regarding relevant upcoming programs, events, workshops and conferences . Please forward inquiries and/or submissions to Rajni Bhargava via email at rb154@nyu .edu .

I would like to thank all who contributed to our newsletter and would continue to give their support and help in the future . Thanks to Gautami Shah for her constant support and Dhruv Chanchani without whom this newsletter would not have been possible and as always doing a wonderful job in designing it .

-Rajni Bhargava

SALTA EXECUTIVE BOARD

Name Position EmailGautami Shah President gshah@austin .utexas .eduSeema Khurana President-elect seema .khurana@yale .eduGabriela Nik . Ilieva Past President gni1@nyu .eduMahajan, Gyanam Treasurer/Secretary mahajan@humnet .ucla .eduBabu Suthar At-large Member bsuthar@sas .upenn .eduShahnaz Hassan At-large Member snzhasan@mail .utexas .edu

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