COURSE OBJECTIVES

Students begin foundation work in speaking and understanding the Urdu language and culture.  Grammar, reading, and writing are also an integral part of the course.  This is a very basic course. 

The course will present grammatical concepts as necessary, but the focus will be on learning conversational skills through the materials in the text and additional hand-outs, as well as achieving an appropriate level of reading and writing skills.

COURSE ELEMENTS

                  Conversation
                  Listening comprehension, including dictation
                  Translation, Urdu to English and English to Urdu
                  Reading, including role-playing of dialogues assigned for each class
                  Grammatical structures

SUPPLIES

            Students are expected to purchase bring to class the following text:
              Spoken Urdu: A Course in Urdu (Volume I), Muhammad Abd-Al-Rahman Barker et. al.
              Urdu Dictionary (name will be supplied by Instructor)

EVALUATION

                    5% - Class attendance
                  15% - Homework
                  30% - Oral proficiency
                  20% - Participation
                  30% - Exams

Week 1 – September 14, 2005  
Welcome to students, introduction of instructor and students to one another, explanation of syllabus, and expectations as to participation and homework.  Hand-outs of Urdu script and introduction to consonants and vowels.  Introduce daily rituals/greetings.  Home work assignment (script writing exercises).

Week 2 – September 21, 2005
Home work assignment collected. Introduce Unit VI: Basic structure of the Urdu script. Introduce more vowels and consonants.  Conversation practice and role play. Home work assignment (joining of letters). 

Week 3 – September 28, 2005
Homework collected.  Review Unit VI.  Introduce Barker Unit I: phonetic drills, long vs. short vowels, sentence patterns, word orders with noun phrases.  Students will play roles in Textbook, Unit I.  Dictation and joining of consonants.  Hand-outs of Unit in Urdu.  Home work assignment.

Week 4 – October 5, 2005
Homework collected.  Continue Unit I.  Introduce pronouns and the verb, to be.  Introduce postpositions and possessive adjectives.  Word order with noun phrase.  Transformation/Substitution drills and conversation practice. Dictation (Urdu-English). Hand-outs of Unit in Urdu.  Role playing.  Cultural presentation.  Home work assignment. 

Week 5 – October 12, 2005
Homework collected.  Introduce Unit II: interrogative order, comparative and superlative and masculine nouns.  Dictation (Urdu-English).  Role playing, conversation practice. Cultural presentation.  Home work assignment. 

Week 6 – October 19, 2005
Homework collected. Review of vocabulary for Unit II.  Introduce compound postpositions and demonstratives.  Masculine adjectives, possessive pronouns and the verb “to be”. Vocabulary/grammar drills/transformation/response drills. Dictation (Urdu-English). Role playing, conversation practice.  Cultural presentation.  Home work assignment.

Week 7 – October 26, 2005
Homework collected.  Introduction to Unit III: word study, analysis.  Grammar: masculine nouns/ series of nouns, nouns used as measures.  Dictation (Urdu-English). Role playing, conversation practice.  Cultural presentation.  Home work assignment.

Week 8 – November 2, 2005
Homework collected.  Unit III: introduce feminine adjectives/adjectives used as nouns and postposition “ko”.  Introduce the polite imperative form.  Dictation (Urdu-English).  Vocabulary / grammar drills/ transformation/multiple choice drills.  Role Playing, conversation practice.  Cultural presentation.  Home work assignment. 

Week 9 – November 9, 2005
Review grammar points Units I – III.  Review vocabulary.  Dictation (Urdu-English).  Role playing, conversation practice. Brief review of final exam. 

Week 10 – November 16, 2005
Brief review and final examination.