Persian Language Course Outcome Objectives

Le langage reproduit le monde, mais en le soumettant à son organisation propre.
-Émile Benveniste

The study of other languages and their ways of ordering the world enables the perception--and eventually the comprehension--of otherness. This apprehension of otherness enables a perception and comprehension of self. There is no self without other.

Foreign language study is the key of access to the original Text (in the linguistic sense) of foreign culture, foreign behavior, and foreign perception, which cannot be translated into English or read in any translation, however good it might be.

The awareness of other conceptual systems, arrived at through the study of other linguistic systems--and the comparison with one's own--improves the mind's ability to find creative solutions to problems.

The 'boxes' which languages use to 'hold' pieces of the world are of different sizes and shapes, and the learning of a new language always causes one to have to break down and abandon his own conceptual categories, which he naïvely believed to correspond directly to external reality. Foreign language study brings home in a vivid and unforgettable way that 'reality' is constructed. Seeing the construct which another has made enables the understanding--and modification--of one's own process of construction and one's own consciousness.

First semester (101) objectives

At the conclusion of the first-semester course, successful students will be able to do the following in writing and orally with sufficient accuracy to be understood by a native speaker who is accustomed to dealing with foreigners:

-Greet people appropriately according to time of day, social situation and relationship of speakers
-Say good-bye according to time of day, social situation, and relationship of speakers
-Introduce oneself and others among strangers
-Indicate one’s own age, mother tongue, and national origin
-Identify other countries, nationalities, and languages
-Identify family members and describe relationships
-Indicate ownership and possession
-Avoid redundancy in referring to people and things by using pronouns
-Identify professions and occupation
-Describe personal physical states
-Communicate about seasons and weather
-Give simple commands relating to classroom study
-State physical location in space of various objects
-Express personal likes and dislikes
-Tell time and indicate the day and date
-Describe people and objects and indicate quantity
-Describe simple daily activities
-Identify typical landmarks in a city or town
-Describe leisure activities
-Describe a home or other residence, including contents and associated activities
-Describe actions in progress
-Enumerate things which happened in the past or tell a simple story in the past
-Identify the countries of the Mid-East and South Asia
-Provide information about cultural topics related to the Persian-speaking world such as the market, the mosque, food and drink, surnames, traditional family structure, sports, and hospitality
-Read and comprehend written texts at this level
-Write and take dictation in Persian cursive handwriting at the level of their oral proficiency

Second-semester (102) Objectives

At the conclusion of the second-semester course, successful students will be able to do the following in writing and orally with sufficient accuracy to be understood by a native speaker who is accustomed to dealing with foreigners:

-Give instructions to and follow instructions given by classmates, friends, and family
-Give instructions and follow instructions given in professional and formal situations
-Tell what people have just done
-Avoid redundancy in referring to people and things by using direct and indirect object pronouns
-Make comparisons and state superlatives
-Use calendar and time to express dates
-Discuss Iranian food and beverages
-Order food and beverages in a restaurant
-Extend and respond to invitations
-Engage in some basic ritual politeness, ta’ârof
-Report completed past actions
-Identify body parts
-Discuss conditions related to health and discuss remedies
-Discuss daily routine and personal care activities
-Describe extended family relationships
-Discuss shopping habits and preferences
-Interact with sales personnel to purchase things
-Express desire and intention
-Indicate how long something has been going on
-Ask questions to obtain information about people, places, events and activities
-Report ongoing or habitual actions and feelings in the past
-Narrate in the past
-Express future events
-Express plans and intentions
-Describe changes in emotion
-Discuss holidays and vacations
-Discuss the beach and the mountains
-Discuss travel plans and preferences
-Discuss how to get around in a city and indicate where places are located in relation to one another
-Identify on a map the countries Iran, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan
-Discuss the carpet industry of the Mid-East
-Discuss shopping and bartering in the Mid-East
-Recite a poem in Persian
-Describe the ritual celebration of Persian New Year, no ruz
-Read and comprehend written texts at this level
-Write and take dictation in Persian cursive handwriting at the level of their oral proficiency
-Type homework exercises and short compositions using a Persian word processing program

Third-semester (201) Objectives

At the conclusion of the second-semester course, successful students will be able to do the following in writing and orally with sufficient accuracy to be understood by a native speaker who is accustomed to dealing with foreigners:

-Engage in a complete telephone conversation
-Express what has and has not happened
-Express conditions and results, real and hypothetical
-Express moods, possibilities, inabilities, doubts, uncertainties
-Explain what people do for and to one another
-Describe people’s personalities, moods, and emotions
-Use extended formulaic ritual politeness, ta’ârof
-Describe how things are done
-Communicate about professions, the workplace and work-related activities
-Describe the process of looking for employment
-Communicate about personal finances
-Make statements about motives, intentions and periods of time
-Express desires and intentions
-Describe completed actions and resulting conditions
-Express emotions and make impersonal statements
-Express uncertainty and doubt
-Make statements of purpose and express anticipated actions
-Communicate about hypothetical situations
-Communicate about accidental or unplanned occurrences
-Communicate about the way things would be in certain circumstances
-Describe what has happened and what may have happened
-Express conjecture and probablity about the present and past
-Express influence, emotion, uncertainty and denial in the past
-Communicate about television, movies and other aspects of popular culture
-Communicate about artists and their work
-Describe and discuss Persian classical music, singers, and instruments
-Communicate about politics and elections
-Communicate about political issues and the media
-Communicate about urban and rural locales and the benefits and problems
associated with each
-Communicate about computers and related accessories and activities
-Read and comprehend written texts at this level
-Write and take dictation in Persian cursive handwriting (nasta’liq) at the level of
their oral proficiency
-Type all homework and compositions on a computer using Persian word processing

Third-semester (201) Objectives

By the end of the fourth semester (second year), a successful student should have the following skills:

Listening

-Understand and interpret the main ideas and some details of increasingly longer stretches of speech including various verb tenses and mood.
-Utilize context clues, both aural and non-aural, to piece together non-comprehended information

Speaking

-Initiate a general conversation by means of asking questions.
-Paraphrase what somebody else has said or what has been read
-Make a brief argument for or against a proposition
-Begin to sustain conversation by utilizing effective communicative strategies to express ideas (i.e., circumlocution, soliciting opinions)
-Use increasingly precise vocabulary words in diverse communicative contexts
-Describe characteristics of people and things, and physical and mental conditions
of people
-Narrate experiences or events in various tense and mood references including present, past and future, and the emergence of conditional and hypothetical situations
-Exchange opinions and individual perspectives on cultural topics (e.g., traditions, historical events or characters)
-Express agreement and disagreement, supporting opinion with simple reasoning
-Make evaluative statements and recommendations, attempting to influence others
-Prepare and deliver short oral reports on a given topic on Persian culture (artistic/literary and/or popular culture)

Reading

-Read with increasing understanding a variety of authentic materials, which might include short stories, poems, essays, or readings from a Persian language website, newspaper, or magazine.

Writing

-Take longhand Persian notes in some detail on course topics and provide detailed written responses to assigned questions
-Increase precision in the expression of ideas, using various verb tenses and both indicative and subjunctive moods
-Describe and narrate ideas or information in extended informal writings, such as journal entries
-Prepare a composition with a clear organization of topic sentence, supporting
details and conclusion, as well as an increased focus on achieving greater cohesion
in writing, through using such elements as pronominal substitutions and transitional expressions
-Type a prepared composition using a Persian word processing program

Culture

-Gain a greater understanding of and appreciation for Middle Eastern and South Asian peoples and cultures
-When presented with cultural phenomena, make justifiable inferences about relevant cultural practices, products and perspectives
-Obtain information about the Persian-speaking world from outside sources such as the Internet, and make sound judgments about the validity of the information
-Obtain information about South Asian and Middle Eastern culture, such as music, art, architecture, literature and film; experience such works; and react to them
-Obtain information about Iranian or Afghani culture such as daily routines and patterns of behavior, perspectives daily life and behavior that identifies and defines the culture
-Look for and identify connections between material studied in class and the world in which students live
-Identify some major contributions that Persian culture has made to European society and to the world
-Recognize some of the stereotyped ways in which Iranians perceive Americans and Americans perceive Iranians