Posted by Will Cragin on February 17, 2009 at 10:00pm
Semester Goals – By the end of the semester I would like to…- Be able to recognize Farsi characters and read Farsi words.- Greet people and say goodbye to them.- Introduce myself to others and understand their responses and questions.- Be able to ask about different goods – fruit, food, clothes – at a market in Tehran, Iran, and be able to understand their response.- Know basic grammar structure – pronouns, conjugations, negatives, and sentence structure.- I want to be able to read a menu and order from it.- I want to be able to ask Iranians what they think about Americans.Long Term GoalsMy long term goals are to be able to communicate effectively with native speakers of Farsi and Dari. I hope to one day work in a Farsi speaking area, and being able to communicate with the people there would greatly help my work. It is therefore not necessary to be able to read Farsi at an academic level, as I am far more interested in using it colloquially. I have always been fascinated in learning about other peoples and cultures, and in my mind the first step towards any understanding among people of different backgrounds is to be able to speak the same language.
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My long term goals for this semester are being able to read children's level books without having to dissemble the words and using a dictionary. I also want to be able to write simple sentences and phrases. My speaking goals will simply be to expand my vocabulary. My first artifact will be a translation of Jack and Jill into Farsi. My second artifact will be a weather report recorded on a power point.
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Goals:- keep working on my vocabulary building.- Search for more resources.- start writing my reflections in Farsi.Resources:- BBC website. Business News articles.- My language partner had provided me with some documents in Farsi which will help me understand the terminology used in specific department.
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As of now, my long term goals are as follows:To be able to identify letters of the alphabet when written, and simple commonly used wordsTo be able to greet others and say goodbyeTo be able to introduce myself, express basic information about myself (name, age, where I am from, how I am doing, details about my family, occupation) and ask others the sameBe able to describe objects using their position, color and the number of itemsRead and order from a menuBe able to describe my daily routine in simple termsBe able to communicate basic information to a customs officer
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Posted by Will Cragin on February 17, 2009 at 5:22pm
Week 3 Review -This past week I continued to study Farsi script, and am gaining more confidence as the weeks progress. My reaction time is quicker and I feel more confident. While I did not learn months yet, I was able to learn pronouns, prepositions, family vocabulary, more question words, and some practical conversation about malls. Mona, our drill instructor, brought a friend in who goes to Sargent Reynolds community college in Richmond. He is from Iran, and has been in the US for the year. He answered questions about Iran, things about nightlife and social life for college students, ways of dress and different styles, and about family relations. It was very interesting. I also spent a fair amount of time practicing basic conversation and introduction skills with another Farsi student, which was extremely helpful.Week 4 - This week I would like to learn numbers, 20-100, 5 new verbs, 5 new adjectives, and fruits. In addition, I would like to continue reviewing the Alphabet and getting more comfortable reading script. I also plan on continue to practice Farsi conversation with another Farsi student twice a week. Not only will this reinforce vocab and phrases learned, but it will allow me to be more comfortable both speaking and listening to the language.Resources - BBC Farsi, Farsi Textbook, Class notes, handouts, EasyPersian, language partner for speaking practice.
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I have been focusing mostly on reading and writing. If this is the case for other people as well I suggest looking into rosetta stone. The sentence building exercises are very helpful with word recognition. Needless to say, I will be integrating Rosetta stone into my lesson plan and will rely on it much more.
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Objectives:• Learn members of the family• Learn 5 adjectives and be able to use them in a conversation• Learn 3 verbs (To be, To go, To want) and their conjugations in the present tense• Learn 5 more prepositions• Learn 10 fruitsResources• Language Partner• Other classmates• BYKI flashcards• Modern Persian textbook• Diigo LinksTasks• To learn members of the family I will study the vocabulary from my textbook and make flashcards. I will learn them from flashcard use and oral repetition.• Learn 5 more adjectives from BYKI flashcards and study them with the use of oral repetition and flashcards• Learn 3 verbs and make charts that show their conjugations with each of the 6 forms from textbook.• Learn 5 more prepositions from BYKI flashcards. To learn them I will use flashcards and oral repetition• Learn fruits from both the textbook and BYKI flashcards and practice through oral repetition and flashcards.Evaluations• Be able to ask someone the names of the members of their family, where family members are from and how old they are• Be able to hold a conversation asking how people are and be able to respond with newly learned adjectives.• Be able to use verbs in a conversation about who I am, where I am going and what kind of fruit I want, using the first and second forms of the verbs.• Be able to have a conversation about the kind of fruit I want, the color of the fruit and the quantity of the fruit.
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This past week my learning objectives went well. I felt that I had a lot of things to learn and I would not say that I have fully mastered all of the vocabulary. I think with a little more practice I will be better at answering questions about time, days of the week and age more quickly than I can right now because I am not as familiar with the vocabulary as I would like to be. I think that for next week I will have fewer objectives in order to continue working on the vocabulary from last week.Watching the movie Kandahar was a positive experience because it was nice to know that there were some words that I recognized when Farsi was spoken at a normal pace, including phrases like “What’s your name?”, “Hello” and “How are you?” The BBC broadcasts that I have been listening to are a little more frustrating in that even though I can pick out words, they speak at a language level higher than what I have. Hopefully as I listen to more broadcasts and learn more vocabulary it will get easier to listen and I will be able to understand more than I do right now. However, the broadcasts are helpful because they help me learn the rhythm of the spoken language and where the spaces are between words.This week in drill was interesting because on Thursday Mona brought in a male Iranian student and we got to hear how he spoke Farsi, how he wrote Farsi, and hear about what life was like for a guy in Iran. At first if he wrote a word on the board I had a hard time figuring out what characters they were, but by the end of the class I could pick out the characters. It was also nice getting a male perspective on what living in Iran is like and I think our whole class learned from his perspective on things like what people wear, eat and do.
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Posted by Becky Walker on February 15, 2009 at 4:00pm
110 Farsi Week Four Objectives.docxWeek four was ambitious. I ended up focusing more on learning different verbs and building my noun/verb vocabulary instead of collecting a foundation for adjectives. I found it frustrating to be able to understand questions asked in drill class, and not be able to respond to them simply because I didn't know verbs. Thus, I changed my learning plan mid-week, or rather I enhanced it (as I ended up learning more).My workbook, Modern Persian, arrived this week, and has been a great help. I really like the lay-out of the book as it combines grammar with vocabulary. It also has an audio section, which will be a great help as the book includes many of the scripts that they read.I am continually finding similarities to the aspects of Arabic that I found easy, and thankfully, the parts that I struggled with don't exist in Farsi which is extremely reassuring. I am also finding it quite easy to relate this language to Spanish--a foreign language I am comfortable with--as without having to dedicate too much time on the script I can implement many of the same methods from Spanish to Farsi.
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Posted by Will Cragin on February 11, 2009 at 7:27pm
Week 1 – This week, my first week of studying Persian, I plan on focusing almost solely on learning the alphabet. The rest of the students in my drill section have either studied Arabic or already learned the alphabet, so I feel it’s crucial that I get this down as soon as possible. My goal is simply to learn each character as it stands on its own. I also plan on being able to say hello, how are you, and answer accordingly, as well as counting from 1-10.Resources – I plan on using the handouts that Mona passed out in class, as well as the easypersian.com website for further reference. I will also use BYKI to help with greetings.Reflection - This week I learned the alphabet, and am pretty confident that I can recognize each letter as it stands on its own. The problem is, characters change form depending on whether they are at the beginning, middle, or end of the word, meaning that reading is still a big problem. I am able to say hello, how are you, and answer I am good, and am able to count from 1-10 now as well.Week 2 – This week my main goal is to be able to learn the characters in their different forms, and hopefully begin to be able to read some words. After that, I would like to learn numbers 11-20, and expand on my greetings. I would like to be able to ask what someone’s name is, where they are from, and say goodbye.Resources – Handouts, EasyPersian, Farsi textbook, and BBC Farsi website.Reflection - This week I learned more than I expected. I made solid progress on being able to read Persian script, although I am certainly far from being able to read it well. I am now able to ask where someone is from, what their name is, and answer those two questions as well. I also learned days of the week, some colors, time, and how to say goodbye. In addition, I have begun listening to BBC Farsi daily just to get a feel for how the language sounds.Week 3 – This week my major goal again is to continue to gain familiarity with reading Farsi script. In addition to that, I would like to learn months, pronouns, and prepositions, family vocabulary, question words, and review time.Resources – Handouts, Farsi Textbook, Drill session notes, BBC Farsi website, and easypersian.com
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As it was planned, I worked on vocabulary building and have started printing articles on different issues. highlighted the words which were new to me and were supposed to be used in formal settings. Besides, I have been listening to Radio Arman, basically a news/talk and entertainment radio broadcasts from Afghanistan to develop listening and understanding in the language. Radio talks also communicate the culture of the country as well.Sources:www.armanfm.comwww.bbc.com/persian
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Objective:- Vocabulary building.- Structuring formal sentences.Task:- Flash cards- Iranian TV channels.Resrouces:- BBC online persian news articles.- Online Farsi radios.Evaluation:- Use the vocabulary when I talk to my language partner or anyone to whom I speak in Farsi.- Try to translate English sentences to Farsi.
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- The main goal for me is to be able to read and write more sophisticated documents and be able to absorb the main idea of the topics read or discussed.- Increasing vocabulary building.- Learning to structure formal sentences.- Learning the framing and style of Farsi letter writing- Writing business letters- Learn about the history and different cultures of the spoken language.- Farsi grammar.Artifacts:- At the end of the semester I will give a presentation in Farsi Language discussing a business topic.- I will write a letter to an organization applying my understanding of the format used in governmental offices. I will also write a letter to a family member in Farsi.
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Posted by ReidSchluter on February 10, 2009 at 3:14pm
I'm going to paste my 3 paragraph learning plan from this past week, and comment on how effectively I accomplished the goals within each paragraph:My learning plan for the week will focus on fundamental conversations. In other words, I wish to master simple, everyday conversations within Dutch—and as a byproduct hone my pronunciation skills—and use those as a basis point for expanding my knowledge. I’m of the opinion that this is the best way to approach the language, since I think that pronunciation may well be the biggest hurdle I face in learning it. Once I have conquered this issue, I will be able to have dialogues in my head (i.e. start thinking in Dutch) far easier, and at that point the language will become second nature.REACTION: I did great work on my accent this week, but will touch on that more in reaction to the next paragraph. With regard to fundamental conversations, I don't yet possess the ability to think, react, & pronounce properly if I were to have a random conversation in Dutch. I am okay with basic phrases like 'hoe gaat het... - how are things...' or 'kan ik u helpen', 'wat kosten', etc... and can say those at the drop of the hat. anything substantially more complicated would still be a stretch as I don't yet possess a complete enough vocabulary. That will come in time though. This week I learned a lot of words/phrases useful in grocery store (or really any service establishment), so more vocabulary will come through reading more of the book.My tasks for this will be simple. My primary objective will be repetition of the many different sounds in Dutch. As an example, I mean differentiating between ‘OO’, ‘O’, ‘OE’, etc… and all the alterations that can occur from the letters positioned around them. There are large amounts of varying vowel sounds, and after meeting with my language partner for the first time, I am beginning to get a pretty strong grasp on them. I’ve learned simple introductory conversation to another person as well as a variety of everyday situations in a restaurant or store. I need to focus on making this more seamless though, so that I do not have to think about what I am saying. By continuing to work on my pronunciation by myself as well as with my language partner, I think I could develop a very strong knowledge of these basics this week, which will serve as a launching point for a far steeper learning curve.REACTION: I did very well with this based on both Jan's & my own estimation this week. Now by my third meeting with Jan, I'm becoming quite good in differentiating vowel pronunciations, and as a result my speech has become noticeably quicker (while still slow), and I find myself not thinking about it as much. It is becoming like second nature, and that has been my overall goal for the early weeks of the course. After our second meeting, Jan told me my vowels had developed, and I should switch my focus to R's, V's, & CH's. I don't think I've mastered any yet, but he said there was a marked improvement on all three after our third session yesterday. Jan is very honest with me, and we both are of the opinion that my accent is developing about as well as either of us could have hoped. I am hoping that within two weeks it will be good enough that it could get me around the country, and I can start working through vocabulary, conjugations, & the other structures of the language that will rapidly advance my skills.My evaluation of what I’ve learned will rely heavily on my language partner. We met briefly on Sunday to develop a schedule and see what we would be working on in the near future. Yesterday we had our first official language instruction though. He pointed out my main flaws as ‘R’s’ that occur in the beginning of sentences, and a lack of awareness of differentiation in vowel sounds. As a result, I have to work on my ability to pronounce R’s, as well as merely remembering which vowel sequences produce which sounds. My improvement over the hour I spent with him yesterday leads me to believe that I could more or less master these skills in the next week or two. He says my book is very good, and has encouraged me to work with certain words he has given me as well as some phonetic examples given in the book. My ability to have a simple conversation with Jan will serve as a very effective barometer of how much I have learned in this regard. He will evaluate me in this regard, but hopefully I can go from scripted conversations with a few glaring pronunciation errors, to unscripted conversations with little or no pronunciation errors.REACTION: I touched on much of this in the last paragraph. I wrote a fairly lengthy dialogue that we practiced with yesterday. Writing it was not too difficult, but doing something similar unscripted still wouldn't be possible (unless maybe it was very honed in the lessons/phrases I've learned thus far). My pronunciation has improved to the extent that a native speaker would completely understand what i was saying [I think]. In yesterday's meeting, Jan did not point out any glaring errors, but merely subtle ones that did not disrupt the conversation as a whole. I'm pleased with this development, am starting to feel as though I'm no longer speaking a 'foreign' language, & honestly think I'm about to takeoff in terms of my learning.
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This week I want to divert off from my oral objectives and focus on an area that will enrich my education as a whole. I feel there isn’t any meat so to speak behind my developing skills because the context in which I am learning them is missing one crucial element, my cultural and historical education in the Farsi language. Up until this point, my education in the cultural and historical aspects summed to a few fragmented stories from my parents and the media hogwash from our televisions.Objectives:*Learning and understanding the main holidays and customs of Iran and Afghanistan*Differentiating aspects of the society into religious and cultural components*Trying to understand how Farsi is an Indo-European language if it derived primarily from the more Semitic Arabic language* The political organizations of Iran* The aftermath of the Islamic revolution post-Khomeini* Learning the basics of Persian cuisineResources:* Past BBC clips from their archives that date more than 20 years ago.* Tolo TV* LexusNexus and WorldCat online databases* My language partner, comparing and contrasting her interpretations from the ones I concluded from my English articles*Making Flashcards for the holidays and their datesEvaluation:*I think the trick may lie in how I can find the middle ground to what I assume will be very different interpretations of the political structures and instruments that me and Muska will have due to me using primarily secondary and English resources and her being from the country.*Being able to specifically label which customs and holidays have a Afghan/Iranian cultural origin or an Islamic one.* Being able to carry a conversation with my language partner on the cons and pros of Iranian politics compared to that of the States.*Knowing exactly what dish or beverage my language partner is describing to me and giving its specific name back to her.* Being able to describe the alterations of Iranian-American customs and culture compared to that found back in Iran and Afghanistan and knowing why and how the variations stem from.
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Posted by Brian Mahoney on February 8, 2009 at 11:00pm
This past week I didn't make as much progress as I had hoped. Part of this is due to the fact that I've been really sick, but I also am finding that it is harder than I expected to figure out some of the things that I want to learn. I have come across many sources that point out how rapidly evolving the Persian language is, and I think this makes it considerably more difficult to learn what is appropriate in different contexts. The substantial differences between the written and spoken languages, in addition to formality and uses in different settings has led me to find that many things I've learned are no longer used in most everyday language. These subtleties are often hard to pick up on from a website or a book, so Mona has been very helpful in this regard, as even things such as the conjugation of some verbs differs between written and spoken contemporary Persian.I have been able to achieve most of my goals with regards to learning new vocabulary. I've also made some progress in my listening skills, but it is slow in coming. I find that even when I recognize everything within a sentence, I often still have to pause to think it through to determine what the sentence actually means. The Insta-Class recordings have proven fairly helpful with this. To be able to gain much from intensive listening, I've found that it is much more effective if I have access to the transcript of whatever is being said. I try to listen without the transcript, but it helps a lot to be able to pause it and check the transcript for things that I miss or words that I'm not familiar with.For this week:Goals- continue to work on improving oral comprehension- learn vocabulary associated with government and politics- learn present progressive tense for verbs I'm familiar with- get used to using prepositions to describe the order and timing of eventsMethods- listen to Insta-Class recordings intensively to try to understand as much as I can without the transcript, stopping to catch up and to read what I don't recognize- read news from BBC Persian to look for common terms used in politics to learn; listen to news broadcasts to try to pick up on vocab learned- write a story in the past tense about going to a restaurant to practice prepositions and review food related vocabEvaluation- ability to recognize subject of news stories read- how often it's necessary to stop and re-listen or read the transcript of Insta-Class recordings- ability to describe things that happen around me in present progressive without prior planning
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By the end of the week, sunday (2/15) I would like to accomplish the following:a). continue my knowledge and recognition of numbers and the alphabetb). memorize basic hello/goodbye phrases, colors, and days of the weekc). begin working through basic adjectives, such as good, bad, cold, hot...etcI will use the following tasks to assist my memorization:a). for the continuation of my knowledge of the alphabet and the different forms of each letter depending upon its placement within the word - a self made chart where I have to fill in the chart from memory.For numbers I am going to continue memorizing the spelling for the names (such as 1 to one) by the use of flashcards.b). For phrases, this will be a big part of the drill for the week, using them more and more aloud and making them more natural and easy to say and respond to.For the colors I will continue to use flashcards as well as using everyday objects around me to make me come up with the name of the color to describe them when I see them.For days of the week, I am going to try to write them in my planner and use them where ever possible in my everyday activities - I will also use my flashcards to assist with their repetition.c). For the basic adjectives, this is just easing into them and learning how to correcting pronounce them and use them in a sentence form. I am hoping to also work on this in drill.The resources I will be using are the following:a). Alphabet - self made, fill in the blank worksheetNumbers - flashcards - and they are also a main component in the days of the week and will therefore be enforced by learning them.b). Phrases - repetition, drill, and the BYKI flashcards (alternating between sound, no sound, and what is displayed on the card itself)Colors - the website (http://www.digitaldialects.com/Farsi.htm) has a great matching up game for the colors.Days of the Week - again a website it helpful (http://iteslj.org/v/pe/se-days.html) and I am also planning on just using the farsi version of the days of the week in my plannerc). For the adjective, I am going to use the notes from drill and make flashcards to begin learning from.I will use drill as a large form of my evaluation - having my instructor ask me questions pertaining to my learning goals and seeing if I have memorized all that I set out to do. I am also going to create a mini test, using children's workbooks in English and shifting the activities to fill my needs in Farsi.
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