This past week Maroof and I worked on conjugating verbs in the past tense. It's actually very similar to the present tense except the words use different root forms and the ending of the third person singular form of the verb is different. We also reviewed conjugating verbs in the present tense. Now, my ability to speak in simple phrases has greatly increased and is only limited by the vocabulary I know (or rather, don't know).
At this point in the semester I have learned vocabulary for parts of the body, basic introductions and conversations, every-day items, food, basic verbs, numbers, time and family relations. Maroof has also taught me how to conjugate verbs in the simple present and simple past tenses. From here on out, Maroof and I decided to learn vocabulary and basic phrases for checking into a hotel, catching a flight at an airport, getting a taxi and ordering food at a restaurant. If we have time I might also ask him if we can work on train station vocabulary.
I have decided to do my Culture Project presentation on minority religions in Iran, especially Christianity. My interest in this arose because of the raids on Christian churches in Iran at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. I wanted to study the dynamic of Christians in an Islamic state from a legal, historical, cultural and personal point of view. While this may seem lofty, all of these categories are easily intertwined because in Iran, most things lead back to religion. In fact, studying these categories is not difficult in and of itself, but trying to separate my findings into these categories has proven to be very difficult because of the religious influence in Iran.
One language activity that I would use to teach a student Farsi would be one that included listening, speaking, writing and some form of visual aspect. The best way I have been able to learn new words this semester is through using them in Rosetta Stone so my lesson might look a lot like what Rosetta Stone does. First off, my goal would be to teach them how to describe a situation... for example "The apple is green." In order for the learner to describe this situation I would us a picture of an apple with the Farsi word "seeb" under it. I would say the word and have the learner repeat the word and then copy it down in written form. I would do the same thing with a picture ofthe color green. The focus this time would be on the color "sabz." The third word would be the verb "to be." The actual verb is "budan" but the conjugated third person singular form used for objects is "ast." I would then put the three pictures together in the form of the sentence which would look like this: Apple (Seeb) + Green (Sabz) + Is (ast). I would then have the learner read the simple sentence and using the Persian Script under the original pictures, have them write it out. I think I might try to create this as an artifact to use as a visual example of how I think it might be best to teach someone a simple phrase in Farsi.
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