Posted on 06/02/2009 2:11:44 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Indiana University's programme for India studies, aimed at training high school students in Hindi and Urdu, has received about $120 million from the Obama administration.
The money has been granted to the University under the 'STARTALK Program' of the US government, which was started by the previous administration of George W Bush, to increase the foreign language proficiency of Americans in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Persian, Turkish, Swahili and Urdu.
"Our goals are for the participating students to acquire the linguistic and cultural competence to communicate successfully in the language and obtain various learning strategies and skills," said Sungok Hong, a lecturer and Hindi-Urdu language coordinator in the India Studies Program.
The free summer intensive programme for Hindi and Urdu provides the equivalent of one semester of university-level instruction.
IU didn’t have a program for India studies when I was there from 77 to 81.
PING
Are they teaching just the language or are the also teaching the religious aspects, so we can better understand these people??? OK the question has been answered look where the base is located. I.U. Nuf said!
The local public high school will be offering the StartTalk Chinese Immersion Program. Sounds like a good program especially for teenagers.
Yeah, but it won a National Championship so stop complaining
I want a pony.
And I think I’m gonna barf.
Which was a very nice graduation present, by the way.
Wouldn’t the money had been better spent teaching people proper English? I would start with everyone who works in customer service and support services answering 1-800 calls.
In another 20 years, I’m thinking 1 or 2 of those languages on that list will be on life support. Follow the path of the Finns. They know Finnish is a dying language so they learn English, German and/or Russian.
This is actually a good thing.
Thanks to this program one day people in India will be able to call the United States and speak with an operator and be told how to reset their internet Modems in Hindi and Urdu.
For that much money you could pretty much buy the whole state of Uttar Pradesh
Obama Grants $120 Mn for Hindi, Urdu Courses
should be: Obama travels 10 years into the future to tax future people of the USA so he can come back to this little era of chaos to Grant $120 Mn for Hindi, Urdu Courses
We’ve gotta spend 120 million to train some people to speak the languages of the Indian subcontinent so they can man the call centers the Indians have to rely on.
Barry spends money like a broken water spigot, money he claims “we’re out of”......
2012 can not come soon enough.
Area Studies Programs are necessary for the future of American security agencies, and Urdu speakers, particularly, are necessary now and for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, most of this money will go to Hindi language programs for students who are actually studying Sanskrit, but who take Hindi for the financial aid. The Sanskrit students, with a wink and a nod from their professors, mostly goof through the courses, just for the money, which is a disservice to America’s need for foreign language specialists.
If the universities take this money, they have a moral obligation to hold the programs to a very high standard of modern language study.
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