For my fourth artifact I attempted to translate a Dari news broadcast; which you can watch here. Of course, given that I am not entirely fluent in Dari, this is a rather rough synopsis of what the broadcast was discussing:

(0:00-0:11)

South Sudanese president Salva Kiir Mavardit discuss fighting in the region and imposes a curfew in Juba

(0:12-0:18)

EU leaders meet to discuss the situation in Ukraine 

(0:19-0:27)

Unseasonably cold weather has created issues in Syria 

(0:28-0:37)

Chile elects its president

(0:38-0:47)

I had some difficulty translating this, but I believe it is about a theater or production in what appears to be Russia 

A copy of my learning plan with the self-assessment portion filled out is attached below:

Learning Plan Assessment

I really enjoyed getting to spend some time this semester learning more about sports and its role in Afghan culture. Having grown up in the United States, where sports forms such a large aspect of the nation's culture, it was interesting to see how sports are perceived in Afghanistan. I also chose to pursue the topic, aside from my own interest in sports, as I believe that sports are one of the few truly global activities. Ultimately, soccer is the same whether you are in Afghanistan, Brazil or the U.S. 

Whether it was learning more about Afghanistan's physically mind-boggling national sport, buzkashi, or the nation's intermittent participation in the Summer Olympics, I was able to touch upon a lot of aspects of Afghan culture that extended beyond sports. As a result, this realization pushed me towards a cultural project that not only focused on sports but the underlying drivers that determined the way different sports were perceived in Afghanistan. Therefore, after months of pondering the role of sports in Afghanistan, I decided to write about how the Taliban influenced sports in Afghanistan and what has changed in the nation's sports culture after the Taliban's fall. Learning about sports in Afghanistan truly exposed me to social and, even more so, political aspects of Afghanistan that I had not previously thought I would be encountering when researching a topic so seemingly innocuous. Nonetheless, I am quite happy that I chose to spend my semester learning about the impact sports has had in Afghanistan as I found out a lot more about the nation's culture through a very interesting lens. That said, to get a better understanding of my findings, refer to my cultural project. 

Attached below is a PDF copy of my cultural project entitled "Overcoming the Taliban: A Look at Sports in Afghanistan." For reference, my sources and the vocabulary I used can be found within the project. 

Cultural Project

I wanted to switch gears a bit with my fourth cultural post and discuss something that was not related to sports, despite that topic being the center of my cultural project. In just a few months, April 5, 2014 to be precise, Afghanistan will be electing its next president. This should be an interesting election as incumbent president Hamid Karzai, who entered office on December 22, 2001, will be ineligible to run as he has reached his term limit. Therefore, Afghanistan will be under new leadership for the first time for well over a decade. Likewise, the timing of the election also coincides with the United States' extensive withdrawal plan that is slated to occur sometime in 2014. There are 11 candidates that are competing for the presidency, including Hamid Karzai's brother Qayoum Karzai; the ballot was finalized in November and can be read here. Notably, there were originally 27 candidates who were vying for the presidency, however, 16 were disqualified for various reasons. Recent polling has indicated that Abdullah Abdullah is the election's current front-runner. Abdullah, a doctor who used to be the nation's Minister of Foreign Affairs, was Karzai's closest competitor in the Afghanistan's 2009 presidential election.  

An interesting topic to follow heading into the election surrounds relations between Karzai, as he exits office, and the United States. Karzai and Secretary of State John Kerry had originally agreed to signing a bilateral security agreement that would ensure that several thousand U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan even after the planned withdrawals in 2014. In an interesting turn of events, Karzai has claimed that he does not want to sign the agreement, and would rather have the next president sign the agreement. It is difficult to understand Karzai's rationale as the agreement had been in talks for over a year - some foreign affairs experts suggest that Karzai may want more leverage in negotiations as he winds down his presidency. Given the recent developments surrounding Karzai and the U.S., the disqualification of candidates and the timing of the U.S.'s exit, this election should prove to be not only very interesting, but also pivotal in shaping that direction that Afghanistan is headed in, at least for the near-term. 

The following articles add some more context to the discussion:

"Afghan Election Race Kicks Off" (WSJ)

"US Organization Optimistic on Afghan Elections" (AP)

"How will Afghanistan election affect U.S. interests?" (USA Today)

"U.S. urges Karzai to sign Afghan pact before Afghan elections" (PBS)

With the semester winding down, I wanted to ensure that I had maintained a balanced approach with my language learning that I had hoped for at the beginning of the semester. This semester, I wanted to be able to improve as many aspects of my Dari knowledge as possible. Personally, I wanted to improve my writing, reading and listening comprehension, pronunciation and speaking skills. I truly felt I was able to hit upon all of the areas I had hoped to improve on. That said, in the final weeks I wanted to improve in an area where I felt I still needed some more work - listening comprehension.

My language partner and I decided it would be best to build upon the activities that I had done during weeks nine and ten; however, this time they would be much more intensive. I wanted to immerse myself in the language by replacing most of the media that I typically watch in English with a Dari counterpoint. For instance, I would watch the news, television shows and sports in Dari when I could. Of course, I did not always know what was being said, but I realized that the more time I spent watching thing in Dari the easier it was for me to gauge what was being said and link it back to what previous knowledge of the language I had. Weeks eleven and twelve were definitely an increase in difficulty over what I had done in weeks nine and ten and I was often frustrated when I would come across a news segment or part of a show that was too complex for me to understand. Despite that, the experience was truly worthwhile and something that I wish I had done more often earlier in the semester and hope to continue to do during winter break. With that in mind, to get a perspective of a sample listening comprehension task that I would perform, refer to my fourth artifact. 

Looking back on what I have been able to do these past few weeks, I am definitely happy with my progress. However, having spent the majority of my time these last few weeks working on writing lengthy sentences and short paragraphs, I felt that I focused too much on writing. Undoubtedly, I had neglected some time that could have been spent working on my reading / listening comprehension and pronunciation; which are aspects of my language learning that I also wanted to focus on.

As a result, I attempted to spend more time on my comprehension and pronunciation during weeks nine and ten. My language partner suggested I watch some videos of people speaking Dari (e.g., news, television shows). Likewise, while watching the videos, she insisted that I also try to listen closely to how the people spoke and took a moment to understand what was being said. This task was a little difficult as my vocabulary was not wide enough to understand everything being said. Nevertheless, I was able to grasp enough pieces of information from what I heard to get close enough to being able to provide a  brief analysis of what was being said. My language partner was also very helpful in assisting me along the way during moments in which I struggled with understanding somethings that were being said.

With the Winter Olympics at Sochi coming up in a few months and my cultural project's focus on sports, I thought it would be interesting to explore Afghanistan's presence at the Olympics over the years. That said, Afghanistan's participation in the Olympics has been rather interesting over the last few decades. Afghanistan first sent athletes - 14 in total - to the Olympics in 1936, when the Summer Games were held in Berlin. However, of the 18 Summer Olympics since 1936, Afghanistan has only participated in 13 due to a variety of reasons. In addition, likely unsurprising to most, Afghanistan has never competed at the Winter Olympics. Afghanistan followed up the Summer Games at Berlin by sending 31 athletes to the next Summer Olympics that was held in London in 1948 - there was a delay between the London and Berlin Summer Games due to World War II; those 31 athletes were the highest number representing Afghanistan across its 13 appearances at the Olympics. 

Afghanistan  did not compete at the Summer Games in Helsinki in 1952, but the nation returned in 1956 to participate in the Summer Games at Melbourne. Of the first three - 1936, 1948 and 1956 - Summer Games that Afghanistan participated, the only sport that it consistently sent athletes for was field hockey; this was really interesting for me to learn about as I never really knew that the nation had enough exposure to the sport to the point where it could have a national field hockey team. The nation continuously competed at the Summer Games until missing the 1976 Summer Olympics at Montreal. Afghanistan did make a return to the Summer Olympics by competing in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Afghanistan's participation in the 1980 Summer Olympics is quite interesting as many nations chose not to participate at the Summer Games in the Soviet Union due to its recent invasion of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, primarily due to the nation's Communist rule. Likewise, it also skipped the 1992 Summer Olympics at Barcelona. Furthermore, the nation was banned, due to the Taliban and its treatment of women, from participating in the 2000 Summer Olympics at Sydney. Consequently, Afghanistan's participation in the Olympics alternated heavily (i.e., did appeared in 1972, did not 1976, did 1980, did not 1984, etc.) until recent years. Afghanistan has competed in the last three Summer Olympics (2004, 2008 and 2012), correlating with its progress over the last few years. Even more important, Afghanistan won its first Olympic Medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing with Rohullah Nikpai winning a Bronze Medal in taekwondo. Nikpai returned to the 2012 Summer Olympics at London and repeated his previous feat by winning Bronze in taekwondo, again. 

You can read more about Nikpai, Afghanistan's first medal winner, here.

Below are some useful expressions (I figured pronunciation would be more helpful than actual script) that one who does not know Dari can learn quite quickly after some practice:

Can you help me?   Mey toaneyd beh men kemek keneyed?

Do you speak English?   Aya shoma anekeleyesey sehebet mey keneyed?

What time is it?   Saat chand ast?

What is your name?   Asem shoma cheyesete?

How much is this?   Chequeder ast?

Hi!   Salam!

Good morning   Sobh bekheir

Good afternoon   Baad az zohr bekheir

Good evening   Asr bekheir

Thank you   Taashakur

How are you?   Chetoor asti?

Good   Khob

As promised in my fourth bi-weekly report, here are some of the short paragraphs that I wrote. Like I noted before, I did not know some of these words beforehand and much of my ability to write them was due in large part to guidance from my language partner.

Note, I typed them out as means to build my typing skills in Dari; unfortunately, for me, this took much longer than compared to when I originally wrote it by hand, and the keyboard I used often messed up some of the characters. Luckily, my language partner was able to email me a revised copy of my typed paragraphs in order to show me my mistakes - I made some errors transcribing my written work to digital. Nevertheless, here it is:

هر کس حق دارد که از آموزش و پرورش بهره‌مند شود. آموزش و پرورش لااقل تا حدودی که مربوط بتعلیمات ابتدائی و اساسی است باید مجانی باشد. آموزش ابتدائی اجباری است. آموزش حرفه‌ای باید با شرایط تساوی کامل بروی همه باز باشد تا همه بنا باستعداد خود بتوانند از آن بهره‌مند گردند.

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

آموزش و پرورش باید طوری هدایت شود که شخصیت انسانی هر کس را بحد اکمل رشد آن برساند و احترام حقوق و آزادی‌های بشر را تقویت کند. آموزش و پرورش باید حسن تفاهم، گذشت و احترام عقاید مخالف و دوستی بین تمام ملل و جمعیتهای نژادی یا مذهبی و همچنین توسعه فعالیتهای ملل متحد را در راه حفظ صلح تسهیل نماید.

Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

During these last two weeks I had focused on trying to write and type a larger amount of text, as opposed to just medium length sentences. As mentioned in my previous bi-weekly reports, I wanted to be able to take my newly strengthened ability to write moderately long sentences and push myself towards writing short paragraphs. Much of my ability to do this was reliant upon me working with my language partner to get a better understanding of what to write about and also to have someone check my work.

Admittedly, while I felt comfortable writing long sentences, I was almost certain - which was the right sentiment in hindsight - that I would make a few mistakes in writing  paragraphs. The task I used to begin writing short paragraphs was based off of a reading assignment - interestingly, although not entirely relevant, this assignment was based on some of the articles that comprise part of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights - my language partner found from a Dari language instruction website. She read the paragraphs to me, albeit in a slower than fluent tone as I did not know some of the words, and I wrote them down. The primary challenge in writing the short paragraphs was trying to determine how to spell the words I did not know, while still trying to comprehend and write everything else that I was hearing. To get a better a sense of what I did, refer to my third artifact. 

During weeks five and six I spent a decent amount of time building upon what I was doing in weeks three and four. I have steadily been working towards being able to write short paragraphs by weeks eight and nine. As I mentioned in my previous bi-weekly report, I needed some extra practice  in constructing sentences. Fortunately, I was able to do some work in this area of my language learning as my language partner provided some assignments to help build my writing skills.

However, I also allocated some time to learning some sports vocabulary in preparation for my cultural project on sports in Afghanistan. It was really the first time during the semester that I had to heavily rely on a dictionary to complete my language goals for the week; which was a fun reminder of where I was a few years back during SDLC 105 / 110. Nevertheless, I wrote down the most sports relevant words that I could think of and come across in a Dari dictionary. Likewise, I also consulted with my language partner for some help to make sure I was headed in the right direction. Refer to my second artifact to look at some of the sports vocabulary that I learned during the last two weeks. 

To help prepare for my cultural project on sports in Afghanistan, I took the time to learn some relevant words.  I have written them in Dari below and translated them into English:

goal   گول   (gol)

victory   فتح   (fath)

defeat   شکست دادن   (shekast dadan)

defend   دفاع کردن از   (defa k)

attack / offense   حمله

player   بازیکن   (baztkan)

soccer / football   فوتبال   (fotbal)

ball   توپ  (top)

cricket   جیرجیرک   (chercherak)   (not entirely sure if this is only applicable to insect or both the insect and sport)

lose   از دست دادن

win  برنده   (borda)

champion   قهرمان   (qaraman)

referee   ریفری   (refri)

rule   قاعده   (qaeda)

bat / racket   دنده   (danda)

basket   تکری   (tokri)

sport   سپورت   (seport)

field   میدان سپورت   (maydan seport)

team   تیم   (tim)

stadium   ورزشگاه

By this point in the semester, I felt a lot more comfortable with my language learning. Having a few weeks to sharpen my skills was definitely what I need to get back on track. Truly, I felt that I had worked, at the very least, back to the point I was at when I finished SDLC 111 in December 2012.

During these two weeks my work focused heavily around medium-length sentences. My language partner would tell me sentences, after which I: wrote the sentences, said them and then translated them back into English. This task was rather effective as it incorporated the following skills: listening comprehension, writing and pronunciation. While I did feel more confident in my abilities heading into weeks three and four, I still had some trouble with certain aspects of the task my language partner had assigned. For instance, I noticed that my pronunciation, when working with new words, was  a little sub par and could use improvement. Also, it occasionally took several attempts to feel really comfortable with my work. Likewise, I also had some trouble with properly writing all of the sentences that I had heard. Hopefully, as I continue working into weeks five and six, I may be able to write and type short paragraphs a lot more proficiently than I had in weeks three and four; of course, achieving this will require some extra practice.  

In exploring the role of sports in Afghanistan, I thought it would be best to start my exploration and research with learning more about the national sport of Afghanistan, buzkashi (بزکشی), which translates to "goat grabbing." The sport has a long history that dates as far back to the time of Genghis Khan. Buzkashi is a game that pits two teams of ten players - all riding on horseback - against one another battling for a carcass (usually, it is either a calf or goat) that must then be returned to a designated scoring area. The sport is very unique, and, besides polo, it is difficult to find anything else to compare it to.

The sport is tremendously difficult for both the players and horses. The players have to be strong due to the physicality of the sport, while also being excellent horseman. Likewise, the horses undergo extensive training; for instance, horses are trained to wait in the event that riders falls off of it. As a result, due to the nature of the game, it may take years for an individual to properly train his horse and himself for the sport. 

Some vocabulary related to the sport are listed below:

horse لسپ

horseman اسب سوار

experience تجربه

carcass لاشه

goat بز

calf گوساله

To get a better understanding of the game, spend some time taking a look at the links below:

Buzkashi Video

History of Buzkashi

More History about the Sport

As mentioned in my first bi-weekly report, my language partner had me attempt to translate a synopsis about the show Afghan Star from Dari into English. Frankly, this translation is not perfect, but I think I was able to touch upon the general them of what was being said - there were differently some areas and words in which I needed my language partner's help, though.

پس از پشتِ سرگزاریِ چند دهه جنگ و آرامش نسبی افغانستان، به میان آمدن رسانه های دیداری و شنیداری نخستین گامی بود که برداشته شد، درمیان رسانه های که ظهور کردند یکی هم تلویزیون طلوع بود که راهی میدان رسانه ها شد. دیری از روی کار آمدنِ این تلویزیون نشده بود که این رسانه مردم را با یکی از پر طرفدار ترین برنامه هایش یعنی ( جشنواره ستاره افغان) آشنا کرد. این برنامه خیلی زود در دلِ جوانان و مردم جا باز کرد تا این اندازه که آخرهرهفته همه چشم به راه از راه رسیدن این برنامه بودند تا با هیجانِ صدا و سرودش مهمان خانه ها .شود و ستاره های درخشنده ای را به آن ها معرفی کند

After many years of war in Afghanistan, it was important to reintroduce radio and television; Tolo TV did this. Its most popular show is Afghan Star. The show was an instant success as each weekend people would watch the show in their homes and hear the new stars. 

درکل یکی از دست‌ آورد های این جشنواره؛ رشد و پالایش موسیقی بوده که تاثیرگزاری آن را نمی شود روی موسیقی ما نادیده گرفت. این جشنواره از آغاز روی کار‌آمدن تا حال همه ساله بدون وقفه برگزار شده و تا حال هشت دور خود را پشتِ سر گزاشته است و حال وارد دور نهم می شود. در این دور هم مانند دور های پیشین داوران و کاروان ستاره افغان به ولایت های زون سفر خواهند داشت و از میان کسانی که .از پیش برای شرکت در این جشنواره نام نویسی کرده اند، ستاره های خود را گزینش خواهند کرد

The show has had a big impact on the music industry in Afghanistan. The show has been on air each year - it has eight seasons and soon a ninth.

I used the first two weeks of the semester as a refresher for what I learned during SDLC 110 and 111. I needed a little more time to get back to the level I felt I had ended SDLC 111 at mainly because I had not taken Dari since Fall 2012. Therefore, not undergoing intensive self-taught language learning over the course of nine months has slowed down my progress in some ways. However, compared to previous semesters, I noticed that I had retained much more knowledge. It was great to see that even after taking a semester off from my self-taught language learning that I was still capable of writing and reading at a level near was I was at when SDLC 111 concluded.

Furthermore, my language partner and I also spent some time reviewing my goals for the semester and laying out a learning calendar for how to proceed with the semester ahead of us. I concluded that I wanted to maintain a balanced approach with my language learning. As I result, my language partner and I formulated a plan for me to work on my writing, reading / comprehension and speaking / pronunciation each week. My language partner and I also got to speaking about my past participation in the course; which ended up delving into a conversation about my cultural presentation in SDLC 110 about the show Afghan Star. As a result, she had me translate a short synopsis on what the show was about as a fun way to gauge my proficiency as the semester begins - you can learn more about my translation by reading my first artifact. 

Attached below is a copy of my learning plan for this semester. It includes seven tasks which touch upon: interpersonal communication, interpretive listening, interpretive reading, presentational speaking and presentational writing. 

Learning Plan (w/o Self-Assessment)

Over the last few years - in part due to taking SDLC 105, 110 and 111 - I have exposed myself to a lot of different parts of Afghan culture. In past years I have focused on the role of media, and modernity and secularism in the country. That said, this year I wanted to learn a little more about sports in Afghanistan. Learning about the role of sports in different cultures is always an interesting thing as each often has its mix of unique ones and others that are played throughout the world. I also want to examine how the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan impacted sports in the nation. Ultimately, I want to do a cultural project discussing the Taliban's influence on sports in Afghanistan and where sports in the nation stands today.

During the course of the semester some the topics I will take a look at are:

• Buzkashi - a sport created in Afghanistan 
• Afghanistan's participation in the olympics
• Sports vocabulary 

Also, when appropriate, I will write about topics related to Afghanistan that do not have to sports, such as politics. 

After reviewing the Levels of Competence, this is where I stood last time I took the course Fall 2012 and where I stand now:

SDLC 111 (Fall 2012)

Interpretive

• Listening: Intermediate - Developing 1
• Reading: Novice - Beginning 2

Interpersonal

• Communication: Intermediate - Developing 1

Presentational

• Speaking: Intermediate - Developing 1
• Writing: Novice - Beginning 2

SDLC 112 (Fall 2013)

Interpretive

• Listening: Intermediate - Developing 2
• Reading: Intermediate - Developing 1

Interpersonal

• Communication: Intermediate - Developing 1

Presentational

• Speaking: Intermediate - Developing 2
• Writing: Novice - Beginning 2

Some of my goals for this semester are too:

• Actually understand a news broadcasts
• Talk about sports
• Be able to read short stories and some newspaper articles
• Improve my pronunciation to sound more like a native speaker than language learner. 
• Speak more freely / spontaneously 
• Translate from English to Dari, and Dari to English
• Write paragraphs