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Hindi Language Instruction |
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The Hindi course begins with learning to write the Hindi alphabet in devanagari script during the summer. All students are required to write all the letters of the alphabet in the Hindi section of their journal, and are strongly suggested to memorize the letters and their accompanying sounds. A very useful free program for learning to write the letters correctly is found at the following web address at the University of Pennsylvania. http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/hindi/alphabet/ You will do your most intensive Hindi work in Mussoorie at the Landour Language School. This school has been in existence for nearly a century. Their year-long courses in Hindi have produced hundreds if not thousand of fluent Hindi speakers. However, we are not giving them a year. We are giving them only five weeks of classes, and obviously, you are not going to become fluent Hindi speakers in five weeks, no matter how easily you learn languages. The classes at the Language School meet approximately four hours a day, five days a week—plus there is homework. Classes are small (4-6 students each) and the teaching is usually superb. The school has a produced a textbook that you will use. The goal at this point is for you to acquire a foundation in the language: learning the script, pronunciation, basic grammar, and a beginning ability to use some of the fundamentals of Hindi. They will attempt to take you as far as they can. The more you put into this, the further they will be able to take you. There will be an examination (both oral and written) at the end of this period. This will be, in effect, a mid-term exam. In Varanasi, you will have opportunity to put your Hindi into daily use and receive help with your skills. In Jaipur, Hindi classes will continue but with far less intensity and frequency than in Mussoorie: approximately one or one and one-half hour sessions a day for about eleven classes. The emphasis in this portion of the course will be on using Hindi in everyday situations.
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