There are not a lot of pages available in the Devanagari script on the WWW. It would be cool and useful for reading and listening if there were more. Nevertheless, recently, I have been able to find sites designed to introduce the script and develop beginning reading skills, (click here for one of them) which , makes me hopeful that soon there will be much more. I have always been interested in finding and providing some reading and listening materials on the WWW. In the summer of 1995 the Less Commonly Taught Languages Project at the U of M prepared and organized a Summer Internet Workshop for LCTL teachers. As a staff member I focused on ideas how to use the World Wide Web for language classroom instruction. We were going to discuss these ideas with teachers of LCTLs who wanted to create and share their own teaching materials. With the help of the staff I developed web-exercises in Hindi which represent my attempt to show how Internet can effectively be used for language instruction. The exercises integrate text, picture and sound to meet different learning styles and preferences, and are suited for the application of a variety of strategies useful for reading, listening, vocabulary, grammar and writing skills.

All the exercises are based on series of interviews of a female Hindi informant with a University degree whom I also recorded for the listening mode. I edited the data to create a learning material. The images attached to the exercises were selected to illustrate culture specific aspects of the Indian reality which was my main goal in the working process (market place, city, village, train station, bathing in the Ganges, etc.)

Click here for illustration of lesson plans based on the webexercises with the strategy training involved.

Besides the activities that the exercises are designed for, such as matching, fill-in-the-blank, etc., they could be used differently as well. For example, this year in first year Hindi, second quarter, I gave the students a recognition task which is usually a part of video activities. I used the final exercises in the Second Year section for a listening and reading recognition activity.

• Step 1. The students individually scanned the text of each description first and then listened to it trying to find verbal adjectives which are a component of our textbook ( Herman van Olphen's First Year, Part 1, p.100).

• Step 2. The students copied the examples provided in the exercises in their notebooks.

• Step 3. I had them participate in a speaking activity. They opened the virtual photoalbum and described several pictures employing the same participles ( built, made, attached, standing, hanging, etc,).

Instead of showing them photos and providing a handout with examples, the advantages of using the web-exercises are that students have visual support and meaningful context, they have the option to listen and read at an individual pace that fits their abilities, to do that simultaneously, and later to go back to the same exercises at home or in the lab as many times as they need.

Click here to view the Hindi exercises on the WWW.

Click here for student reactions to the use of the exercises.

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