Intermediate Urdu: Summer 2009

Professor: Wafadar Husain Office hours: Weekdays: 1-2:30pm Email: wafadar.husain@yahoo.com Tel: 269-972-3869

Course Description and Objectives: This is an eight week course in the Urdu language which will act as an equivalent to a second full year of language study. The course assumes that the students come to the class with a solid knowledge of the Urdu Script and an ability to engage in very basic conversation such as introducing oneself and talking about likes and dislikes, interests and experiences. By the end of this course students will be able to converse comfortably in colloquial Urdu on a wide variety of familiar subjects. They will be familiar with all forms of Urdu grammar and be able to comfortably use and understand common grammatical forms. They will also be able to read and understand newspaper articles on complex topics with the assistance of a dictionary.

List of Texts:

Ruth Laila Schmidt, Urdu: An Essential Grammar, Routledge, 2004 C.M. Naim, Introductory Urdu: Volume II, National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, New Delhi, 2002 Ali S. Asani and Syed Akbar Hyder, Lets Study Urdu: An Introductory Urdu Course, Yale University Press, 2008 Gopi Chand Narang, Urdu: Readings in Literary Urdu Prose, National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language, New Delhi, 2001

Course Requirements and Grading:

Class attendance is extremely important in language classes and particularly in an intensive environment. For this reason absences will be excused only for health or other emergencies and more than 4 absences during the course of the program will result in a failing grade. It is also very important that students do their homework regularly and come fully prepared to actively engage in class. This homework will include weekly journal entries of at least five pages, the mistakes from which will be reviewed in error correction class.

There will be a one hour exam each Friday which will cover the new topics learned that week and review subjects from previous weeks. There will also be a 3 hour final exam at the end of each semester covering all topics learned and all language skills (i.e., speaking, listening, reading and writing). Final grades will be determined on the following basis:

Class preparation and participation: 30% Homework: 25% Final exams: 25% Weekly exams: 20%

Tentative Schedule Week 1: June 15-June19

The first day of class will include an introduction to class, a review of the syllabus and expectations and an introductory exam which will include written and conversational sections to gauge student language skills and weaknesses. During the remainder of the week we will concentrate on reviewing basic vocabulary and grammar with an emphasis on those areas in which the introductory exam demonstrates the most student need.

Weeks 2-8: June 22 August 9

Monday
Grammar Week 2: Perfective Participles Week 3: Imperfective participles 9-10am Week 4: Relative/Correlative Week 5: Conditional Week 6: Compound Verbs Week 7: Subjunctives Week 8: Active and passive voice Film Preparation

Tuesday
Newspaper Reading

Wednesday
Journal Error Correction

Thursday

Friday
Weekly Exam

Grammar Week 1: Infinitives Week 2: Perfective Participles Contemporary articles selected by class from Discussion and correction of Week 3: Imperfective participles Week 4: Compound postpositions online newspapers such as errors from students' weekly Week 5: Conditional Jang, Sahara, Siyasat, journal entries Week 6: Compound Verbs Inqilab. Week 7: Subjunctives Week 8: Active and passive voice Conversation Oral Presentation Situational Conversation

Exam covering subjects covered during the previous weeks

Film Viewing and Discussion

10-11am

Preliminary review of vocabulary Conversation between and discussion of context and students on topics to be construction for film and TV selected in advance by serials to be viewed in class class

5 minute presentations by students followed by discussion/question-answer session and error correction

Role play revolving around Viewing of clips from films common conversational and serials followed by situations encountered in day-todiscussion day life in South Asia
Vocabulary Review and Sentence Construction

Film Viewing and Discussion

Magazine Reading

Literature: Prose

Literature: Poetry

11-12pm

Viewing of clips from films and serials followed by discussion

Reading and discussion of Readings from Gopi Chand Reading and discussion of online Urdu magazine Narang text and other ghazals, marsiyahs, qaseedahs, articles selected in advance literary sources masnavees and jadeed nazms. by class

Vocabulary review from the weeks' readings including discussion of idioms and word construction patterns encountered and sentence building exercises

Translation Error Correction

Sight Reading and Dictation

Listening Comprehension

Drills

Language Games

12-1pm Correction of homework

sentence translation exercises from C.M. Naim text

Listening exercises such as Dictation and reading of news broadcasts, precomplicated texts for proper Grammar and vocabulary drills recorded conversations, pronounciation and oral in preparation for weekly exam and songs with vocabulary fluency provided

Urdu grammer, vocabulary, and spelling games