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History

This is a web version of the Hindi video instructional series नई दिशाएं नए लोग“ New Directions New People” produced in 1988 under a grant from the US Department of Education. These materials were produced by the Penn Hindi team - Dr. Franklin C. Southworth, Dr. Surendra Gambhir and Dr. Vijay Gambhir. The web version of नई दिशाएं नए लोग is conceived and produced by Dr. Vijay Gambhir in consultation with Dr. Surendra Gambhir.

These materials consist of two volumes; each volume has ten lessons. The first volume is for the advanced-beginners who have some knowledge of Hindi – at least an equivalent of one semester of classroom instruction. The primary goal of Volume 1 is to help the learners attain a proficiency level in Hindi that will enable them to handle every day personal, social and survival situations. Volume 2 is for intermediate learners. Its main objective is to help the learners develop their linguistic and cultural knowledge base so that they can comfortably talk about people, places and social issues in informal and semi-formal situations.


Organizing Principle

The organizing principle of this video series is situations and functions that help accelerate the natural language acquisition process.  An array of topics, situations and functions are presented in a rich linguistic and cultural environment. Grammar structures and vocabulary flows naturally from various situations and functions. The flow of the natural discourse has not been sacrificed anywhere in an attempt to introduce any specific grammar structure or vocabulary item. However, it was generally made sure that simple structures are introduced before the complex ones. In Volume 1 the discourse is mostly at the sentence level, but in Volume 2 it includes paragraph length speech.  

No explicit grammar explanations are provided in these materials. However, teachers are encouraged to provide limited explanations of selected grammar structures if needed by their learners. To promote communicative teaching and learning, teachers should avoid giving detailed grammar explanations in class. They can direct their students to the grammars that have already done an excellent job of explaining grammar structures of Hindi.  

 

Philosophy

The philosophy behind नई दिशाएं नए लोग is that a language is best acquired when the content is relevant, interesting and embedded in a rich linguistic and cultural context. नई दिशाएं नए लोग presents materials in a fun-filled soap opera format where humor is interspersed every where. The story that frames the materials is about a USA based brother and sister of Indian origin. They visit India to meet their extended family, explore business opportunities and gain some practical work experience. In this pursuit, the brother and sister deal with various social situations and tasks at home and outside in the community. The selection of topics, situations and functions in the videos make the materials pertinent for both heritage and non-heritage learners. The language is by and large idiomatic conversational style Standard Hindi or Hindustani with occasional dialectal variations.  

Each episode is approximately 10-15 minutes long, and it is subdivided into several scenes for manageable learning. Each episode provides a large input with natural redundancy that creates an immersion effect for language acquisition. As mentioned earlier, the episodes are not created around any grammar structures. They are rather woven around a variety of natural situations, functions and topics that help learners gradually spiral out their target language ability. 
 

Guidelines for Users

  • Each episode is a stand-alone unit in terms of its content and language. So, teachers and learners may use these materials as folder-type materials. Teachers or learners may use any episode or a particular scene that may fit into their lesson plan in terms of content (topic) or language (function, grammar or vocabulary). 
  • These materials are primarily for enhancing socio-cultural and oral skills (listening & speaking). However, the transcriptions and exercises for each scene provide an opportunity to chain reading and writing skills also.
  • Each episode replicates authentic speech with its colloquial and regional features whenever applicable. It’s okay if learners do not understand the semantics of every word or expression after their first or second listening. What’s important is to get the main message first. For details, students may consult online transcriptions and translations.
  • If learners have trouble understanding the normal rate of speech, they may click on the button “Slow Reading” (under the video) for listening to a well enunciated slow reading of the authentic speech.  Listening to the normal speech after the slow reading will prepare students for recovering missing word boundaries and sounds that often fade during the natural speech.
  • For enhancing listening skills, students may click on the “Audio Only” button after watching the video. Listening again without the visuals (visual context and body language) will force the learners to listen carefully and get their meaning from spoken language only.
  • A scene or episode may be used as a pretext for a class discussion on a particular topic. For instance, a teacher may show scene 19:1 and then ask the students to talk about strategies, failures and success of family planning in India during their next class.
  • A scene or episode may be used for teaching a particular grammar point also. For instance, scene 11.5 has multiple contextualized examples for the verb “lagnaa” (...haath baRhne lage; kaarD baNTne lagee; ...ham bhii ghumne lage; ...classes regularly calne lagiiN) and the postposition “ne” (...exam proctor vaalonN ne...; ... moTe moTe cashmoN ne; safed baaloN ne)
  • A scene or episode may be chosen for teaching popular culture. For instance, episode 10 may be shown for introducing the students to the Indian festival Raksha Bandhan (a festival that strengthens the bond between a brother and a sister.)
  • These materials are effective for teaching the complex rules of socio-linguistic variation in Hindi. In the videos, there are speakers of various ages, religious backgrounds and socio-economic levels.  For instance, teachers can draw their learners attention to the various forms of greetings by pointing out who is using which form of greeting with whom and under what circumstances -- “namaskaar” (in scene 11.4); “namaste” (in scene 12.3); “raam raam” (in scene 15.3); “hi” (in scene 17.5); “aadaab araz” (in scene 18.2).

  Main features of the web-version

-         Each episode is segmented into several scenes in an attempt to create more manageable learning units.

-         There is a brief description of each episode listing the main topics and functions covered in it. Go to Overview.

-         There are pop-up glosses for important words and expressions.

-         Students have an option to listen to the real time spoken text or its slow reading.

-         A free translation of the Hindi text is available for each scene.

-         Each section has a series of comprehension and practice questions for review and language use.

 
 

Hindi language support for technical development: Netjaal

  

 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Production Team | Funding