Persian
Language Coordinator: Manouchehr Kasheff
Instruction of Persian at Columbia University
Persian language is taught at Columbia University on three levels, namely Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced. Often a fourth level is also offered that meets once a week for two hours. The overall goal of the program is to train students to gain fluency in all practical aspects of the language, to become able to use primary sources in Persian (texts, documents, official records, scholarly journals, newspapers, news releases, etc.) with ease, to conduct everyday business in Persian, to have some appreciation of its vast literary and cultural heritage, to be prepared for taking a course in Persian literature, and feel at home, culturally and linguistically, among native speakers and interact with them effectively.
Based on the exit criteria of the guidelines developed by the American Association of Teachers of Persian (as explained below), clearly defined goals have been set for each level of instruction. A variety of interrelated teaching materials are used. Students receive them free of charge regularly in the form of handouts about ten days before they are actually used in the classroom. The instructor has also prepared a variety of audiocassette tapes. They include readings, dialogues, exercise material, poetry recitation, songs (with printouts of the lyrics), and lectures. Copies are kept at the Language Lab as well as at the instructor's office. Occasionally video material and films are also used. The principle guideline underpinning all of this has been the conscious effort to promote students' proficiency in all five areas of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and cultural awareness. They include:
- Dialogues
- Readings
- Grammar
- Supplementary Materials
- Extended Vocabulary
Dialogues are memorized and acted out in classroom. They are the mainstay of instruction at the Elementary level, particularly during the first semester. They are closely interrelated with the readings. They help students learn and use idiomatic expressions and the colloquial forms of the most frequently used vocabulary items. They also provide the basis for extended conversations in the class, the use of grammar in practical situations as well as valuable points of cultural significance (e.g., the use of banda/shoma/janab-e âlî; formal/informal/colloquial expressions "I/you/you" and polite behavior). It goes without saying that Persian gradually replaces English as the language used in the classroom.
Readings for the Elementary level include controlled sentences to illustrate grammatical structures and brief passages with cultural information. The reading material at the intermediate level include texts developed by the instructor as well as unadjusted excerpts from classical literature, newspapers, memoirs, essays, short stories and novels, and complete unadjusted short stories besides readings with useful cultural, historical, and practical information (e.g., a trip to the city of Qom, the legend of Jamshid, Nowruz), and some poetry. At the advanced level readings are selected from a variety of sources, including short stories, expository essays, poetry (classical as well as modern), newspaper editorials, essays of social criticism, argumentative pieces, excerpts from plays, samples from classical Persian texts, readings with cultural content (e.g., rituals related to childbirth and getting married, tribal life).
Supplementary materials serve a variety of purposes. They are used to teach the alphabets and basic elements of penmanship, to reinforce important points of grammar by providing more examples or exercise sheets, to elaborate/expand further on a grammatical and cultural point made in dialogue (e.g., time, verbs, rude/polite utterances), to serve as a source material for quick reference (e.g., telling the time, verb derivatives, list of common Arabic adverbs in Persian, adverbs of frequency, terms of expression used in characterization of people) to introduce useful cliché expressions and familiarize students with basic elements of the culture (calendar, significant dates, major geographical features of Iran).
Extended vocabulary refers to expanded, classified lists of the vocabulary that have been encountered in the readings and/or dialogues. At the elementary level they provide lists of words and some related, useful expressions (e.g., family relationship, household, traveling, food, fruits and vegetables, stationery, Persian cuisine, clothing, trees, flowers, driving, shopping). More such lists are given in the Intermediate and Advanced levels. The latter cover more areas of practical interest (e.g., going to a doctors' office or a hospital, using communication media, gambling, driving, sports), are more detailed and contain cultural information (e.g., religion, idiomatic expressions concerning water, fire, hands, legs, etc.) with some details. Some lists of practical value (e.g., Arabic phrases commonly used in Persian) and technical terms (e.g., political science, administration, law, business, prosody, literary terms) are also provided at the Advanced level. Students are responsible only for those terms and expressions that are encountered in the dialogues and/or readings.
Homework. At the elementary level it includes, inter alia, translation (mainly from English to Persian), using given vocabulary in meaningful sentences, filling blanks in incomplete sentences, rearranging group of words into meaningful sentences and translating t hem, writing short descriptive compositions and personal letters; at the intermediate level students translate fairly difficult passages and complex sentences, write fairly long descriptive compositions, compare in writing events (e.g. Nowruz/Christmas) or entities (e.g., two cities, two universities), finish incomplete complex sentences, combing several simple sentences into a complex one and translate them , write critique of the movie seen in class, etc.; at the advanced level students write long compositions including critical essays about the stories and essays read in class, translate long, unedited passages from a variety of sources (periodicals, newspapers, expository essays, memoirs, historical narratives, editorials) and covering various source material (e.g. religious, political, cultural, folklore), write précis of entire articles (mainly expository essays), etc.
The Goals
Elementary
The materials used at this level are created entirely by the instructor. Students buy at cost bound copies of the text (321 pages for $16 in 1998). At the end of this level students will have learned about 1200 vocabulary items (the list adjectives learned during the first semester is enclosed). The vocabulary is controlled, focuses mainly on familiar subjects, and is reinforced by its repeated use in dialogues conducted in classroom, in readings and in idiomatic expressions. At the end of the year students are expected to know basic courtesy formula and basic idiomatic expressions and to be able to use them effectively in actual social situations. They must be able to use correctly present and past tenses with appropriate adverbs and use present tense for future with the use of an adverb of time. They will show a reasonable competency in using perfect tenses in writing, but certain uses of this tense, particularly as far as the students' listening and speaking skills are concerned, will need reinforcement in the intermediate level. They know imperative and the basic use of the modal verbs. They will be able to ask questions with interrogative adverbs, adjectives and pronouns and to comprehend and answer such questions correctly. They will be able to maintain simple, coherent conversation, about familiar subjects (family relationships, weather, personal needs, housing, daily activities, university work, shopping, age, telling the time, hobbies, addresses, calendar, numbers), using polite colloquial as well as standard expressions. They can understand simple messages on the radio concerning the weather, headline news, and the like, and can follow simple oral instruction. They know the cultural significance of formal/informal modes of expression and can use a number of basic such expressions effectively. They are able to read and comprehend any text containing familiar vocabulary and the grammar they have learned. They can use a bilingual dictionary, take simple notes, write brief messages, ask questions about the contents of a reading material, and write brief personal letters to the family and friends as well as short descriptive compositions (e.g., describing a trip, a city, a house, familiar objects, the university, daily activities). They can translate English sentences into Persian and vice versa within the vocabulary they have learned. They know some fundamental body language and gestures, particularly those that send messages in sharp contrast to what is understood by them in this culture (e.g. the use of the thumb) and can deal with situations requiring basic cultural awareness (greetings, introducing themselves, sharing food, talking to elders, asking favors. They know noun-adjective relationship, adverbs, ordinal and cardinal numbers, days of the week, past and present stems, past participle, present and past tenses, imperatives, and the basic use of modal verbs.
Intermediate
At the end of the second year students are expected to have increased their vocabulary repertoire by about 1500 words dealing with a variety of subjects ranging from survival needs to some technical terms. They can initiate and sustain a meaningful conversation using coherent short paragraphs. They understand reasonably well when native speakers talk to one another and are easily understood by them. They can orally describe concrete entities at some length using a variety of simple and complex sentences. They can also write fairly long coherent narratives and descriptive essays without major grammatical errors. They are able to express emotions (love, hate, anger, etc.) and write compositions elaborating on such topics. They will be able to sit through and comprehend a short Persian film that is not overloaded with slang expressions and then engage themselves in a simple discussion of its content and write a brief critical appraisal of it. They can understand a brief lecture in standard Persian about familiar subjects and can ask relevant questions. They will become familiar with nasta lâq of Persian script and can read texts printed in it and comprehend them within the limits o the vocabulary they have learned. They can read adapted excerpts from classical texts, but can read and comprehend a modern short story or short novel with relative ease. They will have to use a dictionary, however. They can read and comprehend newspaper headlines, brief editorials, and news releases. They can write fairly long letters using a variety of information and combine idiomatic and formal expressions with few significant grammatical errors. They will know a number of commonly used proverbs and can use them properly both in writing and speaking. They can read short poems with a reasonable degree of appreciation. They will have a good grasp of the differences between formal and informal utterances of behavior. They are aware of major cultural conventions (body language, ta ârof "formal pleasantries") and can feel at home in situations requiring such awareness. They can comprehend a good part of the discussions on the Persian TV network. In their writing they can use all tenses as well as conditional and other forms of complex sentences. They can write descriptive short essays comparing different objects or events.
Advanced
At this level students use unadjusted material dealing with a variety of topics, including selections from contemporary as well as classical Persian literature. At the end of this level students are expected to have gained a good grasp of Persian grammar, to be able to narrate, explain, and describe events in past, present and future tenses. They know how compounds are formed, how various derivatives are made and their function, internal relationship of cognates and how the morphological function of a given word may change (adjective/adverb, noun/verb, adjective/noun, adjective/verb), various uses of stems and participles, and a very rudimentary knowledge of how to scan a poem. Students will be able to initiate and sustain discussion on a variety of subjects including the subjects they may not be quite familiar with. They can understand when native speakers talk and are understood perfectly by them. They can understand messages on the radio and can conduct a conversation on the phone. They can sustain an argument concerning current events, make statements and draw deduction to a certain degree, and make detailed concrete comparisons both in writing and speaking. They will be able to read nasta lâq style of Persian script with ease and have become familiar with certain forms of calligraphy. They can follow with good comprehension finer points in a Persian movie without subtitles and then express critical opinions about it. They can read short stories, short novels, expository essays, newspaper editorials and news releases, and can write the summary of an essay. They can use Persian primary sources for scholarly purposes. They have a good understanding of Persian etiquette and can handle cultural situations effectively. They are quite familiar with the most familiar expressions in ta ârof and the use of florid language in certain situations. They are well familiar with Persian currency and the culture of bargaining in stores.
Fourth Year
This class is usually offered for the benefit of those students who have successfully completed the requirement of the advanced level and are interested in enriching their knowledge of Persian and their understanding of its cultural heritage by studying its classics. Students who have not taken the advanced course but can demonstrate to the instructor their proficiency in the language can also join this class. Long excerpts from various literary texts of the past, representing different genres and eras of Persian letters are studied (e.g. historical narratives, mirror for princes, poetry, mystical treatises, biographies, religious texts). Interest of the students is an important factor in the selection of texts. The texts are studied analytically with special attention given to stylistic features. This class is particularly beneficial to the students engaged in research for their M.A. or Ph.D. degrees.
--Prof. Manouchehr Kasheff, Persian Language Coordinator