Category Archives: World Languages

Duolingo (Valerie)

Break down communication barriers by learning a world language. Which communities do YOU want to interact with a little more? Choose a language in the free Duolingo app, work at your own pace to earn your language credit, and report your weekly progress to Val!

  • Outside work: Occasional throughout the term

Hindi Language & South Asian Culture (Wasfee Vazir)

Did you know that Hindi is the third most spoken language in the world? It is amongst the fastest growing languages spoken in America and around the world. 

Through this fun and interactive course, students will learn conversational Hindi. South Asian music, art, dance, and theatre will serve as a backdrop for this course ensuring high energy.  

Salient topics:  

  • Learn to write your name and age: Introduction to written Hindi using the Devanagari script. Students will be introduced to the alphabet and numbers in Hindi with the goal that they are able to write their names and age in Hindi! 
  • Tour South Asian cultures: Immersive walkthrough of the various festivals, holidays, and cultural etiquette specific to the South Asian culture. 
  • Welcome Spring! Use this period of transition from winter into Spring to learn about expressing the surroundings in this season. 

Course Experience: 

  • Use of arts and craft: South Asian art and craft themed activities including Warli Art, Indian block printing, clay pottery art and Rangoli designs allowing students to express words, characters, phrases, or simple sentences in Hindi. 
  • Theater and drama: We will also work on a Spring celebration play for the students to participate and speak in Hindi language while learning about the Spring festival of colors from South Asia called Holi.
  • Dance and Music: There will also be a Bollywood dance workshop to experience how this language is used in Indian cinema now famous around the world. • Contextual relevance: We leverage books in Hindi written by South Asian authors – many of them based in the US. Some of these will also have English transliterated Hindi to give the student’s independence to read in Hindi using English script.
  • Digital learning support: The course will also utilize interactive apps in Hindi like Shoonya Kids and Duolingo to facilitate continuous learning for children at different levels of proficiency. 

This course will enable PSCS students to reach novice level proficiency across communications,  culture, connections, comparisons and communities.

Linguistic Anthropology HS (TSam)

Note: This class is open to high school students only.

 

Linguistic anthropology is a branch of anthropology that studies the role of language in the social lives of individuals and communities. Linguistic anthropology explores how language shapes communication. Language plays a huge role in social identity, group membership, and establishing cultural beliefs and ideologies.

In this class, we will explore the history of language and its importance in the past to the modern world.  Students will engage in the exploration of various languages in audible & written form while exercising and decoding information in a research-based environment.

  • Outside work: A small amount (e.g., <30 min) for each session