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India Summer Program

Language(s): Hindi
Duration: Six Weeks
Age of Students: High School Students ages 15 to 18
Class Hours: 120 hours (4 hours per day)
Target Proficiency: Elementary, Intermediate, Advanced for Youth
Overseas Partner: iEARN-India
Overseas Language Institution: Disha Learning Centre, Pune, India
In-Country Accommodations: Host families in the Pune area.

Course and Program Description
The NSLI-Y Summer Institute of Hindi Language and Culture aims to provide an immersion learning experience in which students will be able to acquire the basic skills and improve significantly their functional language proficiency and enhance their cross-cultural competence and communicative skills. Specifically, the summer institute will employ carefully designed learning activities, which will provide exposure to the rich culture of India and opportunity to understand the cultural context to the language. This six week intensive program will include:

 

  1. One hundred and twenty hours of in class intensive Hindi instruction at the elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels, including individualized tutoring.
  2. Projects on Indian history and culture focusing on the modern and contemporary periods;
  3. Six week long home-stays with Indian families;
  4. Twice a week organized interaction with Indian students from local colleges and high schools;
  5. Community based activities centered on efforts taken to improve education for the under-served;
  6. Cultural excursions in and around Pune to better understand the profound cultural, economic and social transformations currently taking place in India.
  7. Classes on traditional dance, music, art and craft to understand Indian culture and to have practical experience in the Indian arts.
The program activities will not only enable the participants to gain insights into important social forces in contemporary India, but also helps them to build bridges between their own cultural interests and the cultural interests of typical high school students in India.
 
Text Books and Materials
iEARN-India in consultation with the Disha Learning Centre will choose text books and prepare learning material for students according to their Hindi language proficiency background. During the arrival orientation in India, a formal and informal language test will be conducted to determine students’ language proficiency level. Textbooks will be supplemented with authentic and current language materials, which will include selected readings from newspapers, TV programs, films, or other relevant Hindi materials. 
 
Cultural Activities
In addition to the carefully designed culture curriculum which includes lectures on Indian history, philosophy, religion, family structure, India’s modernization and its impact on the world the summer institute will also include cultural activities such as folk dance, folk songs, painting, and Indian cuisine.
 
Other educational activities include touring the city of Pune, visiting Surya Shibir, as a part of agro tourism, watching light and sound show and connecting with local students, both college and high school levels. The summer institute participants will also have opportunities to interact with local community by visiting and volunteering at local centers.
 
Carefully designed extracurricular activities such as purchasing and bargaining in a vegetable market, and ordering food in the canteen will serve as an additional resource for improving their Hindi language skills.
 
Final Evaluation:
At the end of the summer institute each student will be required to give a formal presentation based on his learning outcomes during the course and/or on a topic of their own choice in consultation with the program directors. Students will also be asked to submit a written report and the feedback based on their project as part of the program requirements. Students will be expected to share their experiences on the iEARN-Hindi forum.
 
Course Goals
  • The summer institute has a five-fold objective:
  • Develop students’ Hindi language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) at the elementary, intermediate and advanced levels in an immersion-learning environment.
  • Improve students’ understanding of traditional and modern Indian culture through various kinds of interactive cultural activities.
  • Build new and strengthen existing personal and institutional relationships between their •Indian peers, host families and students from the United States.
  • Foster continued study of Hindi language and culture upon the students’ return to the United States.
  • Enhance students’ self-awareness and confidence and build interpersonal communicative skills.     
 
National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y)

About the Program

The Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, in cooperation with American Councils for International Education, AFS-USA, and iEARN-USA, is awarding U.S. government funding to high school and just-graduated students (ages 15 – 18) to participate in summer and full-year language programs in countries where these languages are widely spoken. 

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