A collaborative effort between the Hindi Urdu Flagship New York University and Columbia University, Language for Health is a new effort to develop a comprehensive set of pedagogical materials and guidelines to teach advanced Hindi Urdu specifically for the healthcare context. The project incorporates substantial video material professionally produced for the course in diverse healthcare settings in India. It represents a unique effort to tailor Hindi Urdu instruction to the requirements of a particular, increasingly critical, profession.
Work on the project began in fall 2008. While selected materials will be released as they are developed, Language for Health as a complete pedagogical unit will be released in the summer of 2011.
Professional Hindi Urdu: A New Paradigm
The project aims to develop, integrate and promote the paradigm of language learning for specific professional purposes for the first time in the field of Hindi Urdu (HU) language education. The project's primary goals are to provide resources and opportunities to develop communication skills in HU used in the context of healthcare and medicine while expanding the training of language skills at the advanced level in a comprehensive and innovative manner.
Hindi Urdu in Healthcare: An Urgent Need
Judging from census data pertaining to the South Asian community in the US and researched needs in the healthcare and academic communities, there is an urgent need for the comprehensive development at the national level of these materials. Further, the fields of health and medicine are of primary importance in all the languages for which the national Language Flagship Program has been created. Thus this project will present a completely new paradigm for Hindi Urdu instruction at the advanced and superior levels and will also be a model for similar projects in all-national Flagships.
A Modular Course Package for Advanced Learners
The project involves the design and development of a package of educational materials as well as training and pedagogical guidelines addressing the needs of students entering the professional world and established professionals. The learning units envisioned will be designed with the goal of practicing language at the Advanced and Superior levels and will therefore be an integral part of the Hindi Urdu Flagship curriculum.
