Introduction

The online book project  was one of two components of the Sharing the Bounty project, funded by the ACM-EMKE. This online learning/teaching material is designed for undergraduate and graduate students (and anyone in the general public wanting to retain and improve proficiency in the language) who have already acquired some knowledge and grammar of the language. The new learning/teaching online material is content-based and in line with the Communicative Teaching Approach, and effort was made to employ as many authentic materials as possible. The online book is designed for Hindi students at the Intermediate Mid/High or Advanced Low levels according to the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. These materials were designed to improve all-around language skills, and also to incorporate various disciplines of the target country. Four developers (Lakhan Gusain, Rajiv Ranjan, Sunil Bhatt and Sungok Hong) worked on this project and produced 12 units that cover various aspects of India, such as the Indian diaspora, women’s empowerment, politics, pop culture, health, education, travel, and so on. Students will obtain linguistic and cultural proficiency by obtaining multilateral knowledge about the country through the online book.

The following is a list of units that each content developer produced.  Special thanks go to those developers who reviewed and proofread extra units.

Lakhan Gusain: Unit 9, Unit 11 & Unit 12

Rajiv Ranjan: Unit 6, Unit 8 & Unit 10

Sungok Hong: Unit 2, Unit 5 & Unit 7

Sunil Bhatt: Unit 1, Unit 3 & Unit 4

Each unit follows the same format, starting with a short description of the content and the goal of the unit. Every unit contains several texts elicited from various sources, such as news channels, magazines, newspapers, literature and the internet.   The source of each text is given before the text unless it is created by the author. Each text, whether it is reading-focused or listening intensive, is  followed by a glossary, key phrases and comprehension or vocabulary-related questions. We have included activities in a variety of configurations to facilitate interactions among students.

Each unit also includes a grammar portion at the end of each unit, along with exercises to check students’ understanding of each grammar point.  An answer key is also provided, either embedded with the questions, or accessible through the links provided directly after the questions when embedding is not an option. We tried not to elaborate too much on grammatical explanations  beyond what was needed. Individual instructors might want to provide more exercises and detailed information on some of the grammatical points depending on students’ proficiency and prior knowledge.  We sincerely hope that students and instructors will benefit from this online learning/teaching tools.

Please refer to sharingthebounty.umn.edu to get more information about the project.