UrduCultureProj.pptx

SDLC.pptx

I believe that in general my artifacts have been helpful. They help me hear things like my thick accent as well as the lack of fluidity in my speaking skills-- things I still need to work on. For the most part I can improve on them by making them longer. However, I enjoy the fact that they are interactive and that I feature native speakers because it helps me distinguish between sounds and how words are said and phrases are delivered. My last artifact is where I spoke about myself for a while. Here, I was able to think about things that I wanted to say and execute it on my own. My artifact about food was also brief but I feel as though it captured the focus of the conversation. Some of my artifacts are actually pictures in which I went beyond my goal expectations and learned how to write a little. In the future I would like to create more animated artifacts.

March 2015

My learning experiences this year have been very interesting. As I have previously mentioned in past posts, this journey has been very challenging at times. Urdu is a language that I had only started to hear very recently after I met my Pakistani friends here. Although I had gone to an International School in high school, I had never before encountered anyone that spoke the Urdu language. This meant that I was challenging myself to learn a language that I was not even familiar hearing. This made the start extremely slow and very difficult. Most of it consisted of repeatedly exposing myself to the sounds of the Urdu language as well as focusing on hearing tone, pauses, and what sound people make when they don't know what to say. I found that interestingly enough, once I payed closer attention, it stopped sounding so foreign and instead began to sound like an actual construct of words to me. This was very encouraging.

From this specific experience, I have learned that I as a language learner require practice and person to person exposure. This was crucial to my language learning because if I did not have as many people around me to help me practice, I don't think I would have been able to as easily accomplish my learning goal of being able to hold a simple conversation with someone. Having the option to engage in practicing randomly, at any time of day, and with random individuals (given that I ran into a Pakistani at some point in time) allowed my brain to truly exercise itself. This meant that I would come out of a Math test, spot a Pakistani friend, and immediately have to switch my brain into practice mode-- a true indicator of how much I actually knew. 

I will continue my language learning by hopefully continuing to keep in contact with my friends. Since most-- if not all-- of my resources that I used were online, I have very easy access to more learning opportunities wherever I go. This means that after I graduate and move away from college life, I will still be able to continue my language journey with Urdu-- or perhaps try and start a new one as well with another language. I found that the readings that had to do with how different humans learn and experience language in general were most useful. Many times, understanding these concepts would help me understand something about myself as a language learner-- pushing me to try something new or be more lenient with myself. I would like to learn more about expressions and general tone when speaking the Urdu language. This was something that I was not as easily able to pick up on, and something that in turn may be a little more advanced because it requires developing a sense of "native speech."I feel that after reading the articles and papers that this can be achieved, even if you don't have as much vocabulary. If I can learn the little parts of the language correctly from the start, it can help me get better at all of the complicated parts and build up on things like vocabulary and sentence structure. 

-I can introduce myself

-I can ask others about themselves

-I can greet other people

-I can talk about family

-I can ask others about their family

-I can talk about my hobbies

-I can ask others about their hobbies

In general I feel as though I have accomplished a lot, considering I tried to learn a language that is has been completely unheard of for me, especially since I have just started being exposed to it within the past year or two. I am still at an extremely novice level, but can get by in conversation and can understand simple conversations in Urdu. Since I concentrated in being able to accomplish just that, I believe that I have done a good job. 

My Overall goal is to learn to be able to hold a full conversation with a native speaker in which I basically conduct a monologue in which I explain my hobbies, where I am from, and other interesting facts about myself. I do not plan on learning how to read or write. 

I want to be able to say the following phrases: 

My name is ...

I am 21 years old..

I am from ...

My favorite sport is ...

I enjoy doing ... 

Hello, what is your name?

Where are you from?

Do you speak English?

What is your favorite sport?

I go to the University of Richmond

I am an International Student

I also expect to be able to:

Speak about my family to others

Speak about my general interests

Respond to a person telling me something

Plan

Week 1-2

Learning the alphabet (hearing sound differences)

I would start the whole process by learning Pronouns

Week 2-4

Learning descriptor words/adjectives 

Learning verbs and grammar construction

Week 4-6

Putting what I learned together into sentences

Learn how to correctly construct sentences

Later weeks

Continue to build up sentence structure

Practice, practice, practice with friends and online sources

My Resources

* Interactive websites (like Learn101.org) concentrate on speech and pronunciation

*My friends will help me practice Urdu verbally, since I am a K learner this will help me

*My language partner will help me with questions, suggestions, phrases, pronunciation

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Brief Intro:

For my culture project I focused on how Pakistan has been affected by Militarization over time. This topic relates to my language learning because it helps me understand a topic that is pertinent to the people of Pakistan. There have been several terrorist attacks that have occurred in Pakistan which has forced the government to make some extreme decisions in terms of government, schooling, and safety. Given that these are topics of extreme importance, I believe that understanding and analyzing these changes will help me understand how both the people and language of Pakistan have been affected. 

Summary:

The Peshawar School attack of December 16, 2014 was one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever in Pakistan. The Taliban was in charge of this attack in which 141 people died-- 132 of them being children. This school is an Army public school which was targeted dude to the violent history of the TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban) in Pakistan. There has been an ongoing war in North-West Pakistan in which various militant groups in North Waziristan have been causing chaos. Over 2,100 people have been killed there thus far. The Pakistan Armed Forced decided to act on this on June 2014, launching their Military Offensive "Operation Zarb-e-Azb"  in which hundreds of Taliban deaths occurred in North Waziristan. The Taliban thus considered this attack to be a revenge attack for the Army offensive-- thus the school was targeted in response to military operations. Their motto was to "kill them today before they become soldiers tomorrow." In general, the Taliban targets the army and schools-- which are two targets that were achieved by attacking the Army Public School children (many which were children of Pakistani Army officers).The Tehrik-i-Taliban have had a very violent history in Pakistan, many of which includes the September 2013 attack at a church in Peshawar (killing 80 people) and the 2014 Jinnah International Airport attack.

Pakistan's response included removing ban executions in which they revived the death penalty and 18 people were immediately hanged. A 20-point National Action Plan (NAP) has been set in place, one that punishes those deemed to disseminate terrorist propaganda. Also, on January 6, 2015 Pakistan amended its constitution so that it can empower armed forces to execute "religious terrorist groups" without due process and fundamental rights. Schools have also greatly been impacted. 7 Billion rupees ($69 million)  has been spent on enhancing security at government run schools in Pakistan. School security has also increased through the addition of surveillance cameras, and snipers. Teachers are now also allowed to have firearm licenses to keep guns at school and are required to undergo training. In conclusion, living under a Militarized Government is definitely a cultural issue. In Pakistan there are school that are run by the Army where their children attend-- this is a construct that is not present in any of my cultures. Since their government is militarized, they are able to impose laws and regulations at will. They are also able to make unlawful amendments to their constitution-- putting the protection of fundamental rights and liberties in question. However, in general I feel as though the Pakistani government has had to make large sacrifices in order to respond to such horrific acts. The Pakistani people continue to push forward and be positive in spite of all of the tragedy that has occurred.  Many choose to express themselves through Urdu poetry and songs as discussed in my presentation. 

Sources: 

http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-peshawar-school-attack-death-toll-stands-at-141-pm-modi-calls-up-nawaz-sharif-to-express-condolence-2044341

First Few Slides are attached. Others will be attached on other file.

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Progress

Up until this point I believe that I have learned so much. I have been able to learn the different sounds and have especially become more sensitive to hearing sound differences in the language (very happy to have accomplished this goal!). This took a lot of time, experience, and especially exposure to the language through watching videos and hearing my friends speak as well as interacting with them. I believe that my learning plan is helpful because I set specific goals that I want to achieve (like learning how to say specific words and express/share specific information). Since my goals are still very focused towards learning conversational skills, it also leaves a lot open for me to learn. This means that when going over material with my language partner we always have a lot to talk about, or many different topics to concentrate on. If I could change anything about my plan it would be to add more about traveling and sharing those kinds of experiences. I think it would be nice to focus on a section in which I get to ask questions about where people have been and be able to understand them when they speak about their general experience. 

March 2015

Outline for teaching exercise

I am pairing up with Pravaas Gurung to do our learning exercise. We decided to do a "Simon Says" exercise in which we will teach the class simple action verbs in Urdu. They will learn how to say these words and then learn their meaning by enacting the actions they represent in a Simon Says game. We will use the following action verbs: 

Sit = Behto

Stand = Khurhe ho

Walk to = chau ho

Jump = Khudo 

We will then conduct a final round which counts as the "test round" in which we will be handing out prizes to those that get the words correct. 

Reflection

After doing the activity, I thought it was pretty effective in creating an association between the words, how to say them, and their meanings. This meant that the participants were able to comprehend/understand and hopefully now learned how to use four urdu words effectively. One thing I would have changed is we should have also translated how to say "Simon Says" for the sake of the exercise to make it more holistic as an activity. In the future, we could have probably included more action words to make the whole exercise more interactive and fun. For the most part, people did well and learned how to say and act out the words effectively. 

March 2015

Goals and Tasks for Weeks 4 and 5

Learn how to speak about myself to another person and ask others about themselves.

Learn how to say and ask the following:

My name is...

I am... years old

I am from ....

My favorite things to do are...

I have .. brothers and ..sisters 

What is your name?

How old are you?

Do you speak English?

What are your hobbies?

Resources and activities

Using the online resource website, I can practice and learn phrases. I can then schedule times with urdu speaking friends to practice and exchange words. 

How I will evaluate myself

After learning period, I will speak with my learning partner and see whether or not I can hold a conversation with him. This will test my listening and comprehension skills as well as my general language skills because I will have to speak about myself, know all of the phrases and words, how to properly say them (grammar) as well as accent and pronunciation. 

February 2015

Assessments and Goals

My goals for this class are to be able to speak conversational Urdu, and to speak enough of it that I am able to hold interesting conversations with my Pakistani friends. My learning plan will therefore consist of goals that surround this topic: Information about myself, my personal interests, my background and nationality, asking questions about other people, where they are from, speaking about my family, asking others about their family etc. I plan to assess myself based on how accurately I am able to achieve this goal-- I will do this by recording conversations I have with friends and by using online materials to aid me on my learning journey. My learning plan is attached in another blog entry. 

January 2015

The most difficult part about this learning experience has definitely been learning how to write. I attempted to write in urdu several times but found that it was far too difficult. Due to this, I decided not to focus on this aspect of language. Urdu script is so different than any of the writing that I know (because I am used to roman characters). Urdu's script looks like a bunch of squiggles and foreign characters to me. At first, it was extremely difficult for me to write the shapes and lines of my name. I looked over the Urdu alphabet and tried to write down all of the characters as well. The most difficult part about this was differentiating between the different "t" sounds as well as the different "d" sounds. In most cases, they all sounded the same. This meant that when it came of learning how to write the alphabet, I had to simply try and remember that the different characters/shapes I was learning truly did produce different sounds-- even if I was not able to differentiate between them. 

As previously mentioned, I will be using my friends as direct resources as well as several online cites in order to help me with my learning journey. I will specifically use the urdu website as a general guideline for stating. Using the exercises, phrases, and memory games I will develop a foundation for the basic urdu topics and sections I want to focus on. From there, I will then go over these with my friends by directly speaking with them. This will help me practice but will also serve as a live and interactive exercise for practicing the phrases I learned from the online tool. This will making sure that I work on pronunciation, accent, tone, as well as listening and response skills. I feel as though the combination of these two resources will greatly help me because first I will focus on building foundational understanding through learning and self practice, and then I get to go out and be interactive and apply what I have learned with other human beings. 

February 3 2015

Our readings for today were very interesting and meaningful to me given that I myself grew up in a bilingual household. After discussing these readings in class further, we talked about the challenges that some people may have when encountering another language as well as keeping with their native tongues. I am not sure of whether or not bilinguals are actually "smarter" but I do believe that bilingualism allows an individual to think in two different perspectives when it comes to language. This allows a person to develop a skill that a person which is only able to communicate in one language will not have. The articles argue that bilinguals are able to function in a more holistic manner and perceive more specific things about their surroundings. The most interesting study they talked about in one of the articles had to do with how children that were bilingual were more easily able to differentiate between shapes/colors etc. That exercise showed how bilingual brains are able to capture more complex concepts in such fascinating ways. 

March 31 2015

I have learned a few new words in Urdu so far. I have a grasp on how to introduce and talk about myself, how to ask questions, and how to talk about my family. I learned these mostly through speaking to my learning partner and also by using online sources in order to practice and review the words and sentences I learned. I believe that I do have realistic goals, mostly because I am focusing on the oral aspect of the language and not on the reading or writing. By the time this course is over, I believe I will have a general  novice grasp of this language and will be able to hold and understand very light and brief conversations in Urdu. I will be able to test this by conversing with my friends. The most difficult part still continues to be hearing sounds and pronouncing them. Since this language is very different to others that I know, it has been extremely difficult to produce the sound differences as well as hear them when people speak to me. 

March 23 2015

When languages die it can result in entire cultures being forgotten. If a language does not have a written form and is strictly passed down orally, once the native speakers are lost so will the language itself. After reading the article about the Tribes that were on the verge of extinction, I was finally able to realize the importance of all forms of language. I was surprised how well this man was able to begin to develop a dictionary in his language so that he could keep it alive. I can't imagine how difficult that would be-- especially knowing that you are one in an extremely few amount that can understand or comprehend the language. I believe that at complete minimum, two people are required in order to keep an entire language alive-- however I also believe that languages have the possibility of being revived if some sort of writing or literature is left behind. Although pronunciation may be effected, at least the actual language would not perish.

March 18 2015 

Talking about food. Urdu.m4a

Answering Questions about my Identity

Aboutme.m4a

Greetings, farewells, introductions in Urdu 

Urdu.m4a

Knowing a language's history can directly help you understand how to learn the language because it can help explain why certain things are the way they are. As we read in the article in class, history can explain things like how the languages are related to other languages, what kinds of peoples spoke it, at what time, and in what setting. All of these aspects can help a learner more fully understand the background of the language, which will inevitably create a better foundation for getting context behind developing that language. In other words, knowing all of these things will put an individual in a better place for getting the hang of creating sentence structure, understanding words and vocabulary, as well as knowing what phrases to use and for what reason. In my case, learning the history behind Urdu really filled in many gaps on how Pakistan as a whole came together as a country. It helped me understand why Urdu is so close to Hindi in speech, but how it is so different in writing and script. These are very powerful tools that I used to help me with my understanding of Urdu.