Conversing with Confidence in Hindi with Delhi NGO Students

I am a student in Kusum Ji’s Hindi Intermediate 203 class in the fall 2022 semester. As part of this Hindi class, we learn grammar, vocabulary, and diction. But we also immerse ourselves in the culture of India and Hindi. This has included watching Bollywood scenes, learning about Indian dance and art, and learning phrases that will help us flourish in a Hindi-speaking country. A big part of this class is the NGO experience. More specifically, we talked to people in the Delhi Young Artist Forum. The Delhi Young Artist Forum is an organization that focuses on bringing individuals together to express their creativity through dance, song, and theater. In my opinion, the mission of the Indian group aligns closely with the cultural aspects we have learned in the intermediate Hindi class.

The preparation for the NGO meeting lasted a few class sessions. Initially, we started by making a PowerPoint about the English idioms we would be teaching the students. All the students would be teaching the Delhi Young Artist Forum students 5 idioms. The teaching included the idiom in English, the literal Hindi translation, the meaning of the idiom in Hindi, and then examples of the idiom being used in full English sentences. As we were practicing our teaching methods, Kusum Ji taught us the importance of repetition. It was important to repeat the phrases we were teaching so that the students could get a grasp on the pronunciation and proper usage of the idioms.

At the NGO meeting, we started with simple introductions. We talked about our names, where we are from, and our hobbies (not just simple ones like sleeping or eating). We proceeded to listen to the Delhi Young Artist Forum students talk about themselves, their organization, and the activities they are involved in. We then, after much practice, sang the song “Hum Honge Kamyab” and had the Indian students recite a poem as well. Once we built some familiarity with the students and allowed them to get to know us better, we moved into breakout rooms where we had conversations in Hindi. This allowed us to grow as students as we could use the skills and diction learned in class with people proficient in Hindi. Finally, we taught the students the idioms using our presentation.

This opportunity was a great way for us students to connect with native-Hindi-speaking individuals and learn more about the arts and creative aspects of Hindi-speaking countries. It was a holistic approach to bringing together all aspects of the Hindi intermediate class into a 1.5-hour long immersive experience.

Here are a few comments from Hindi students about the experience:

Pranay, "I had a great time talking with the members of DYAF. Speaking in Hindi for that long was a great learning experience and I appreciated the personal nature of the breakout rooms. It was also very fun to teach the idioms and they seemed to pick them up fairly fast. Overall, I thought it was a successful session where both parties were able to learn and take something away."

Divya, "I enjoyed our meeting with the members of DYAF. They all are very encouraging about us speaking Hindi even though we are still learning, and I can see how much I’ve improved in my speaking since the first time we met with them in Hindi 101. It was really good practice for me and made me feel more confident in my speaking skills. Teaching them about idioms in English was also fun, and I thought they learned the idioms pretty quickly."

Sayuri, "What I enjoyed most was feeling like I understood a lot and seeing the real life applications of things we’ve been taught in class. It is amazing how much we’ve learned in just 2-3 months. Before this class I would not have understood the majority of what she was saying but now I feel a lot more prepared and my comprehension is a lot better. Practicing speaking was very important and I had a lot of fun! Perhaps we could give them some contact information in case we or they needed any language help in the future, or we could have a pen pal type of situation and write them cards or find some other way to stay in touch."

Rishi, "My expectations were met for the NGO program. It was overall an extremely positive and rewarding experience in which I had the opportunity to communicate with a group of individuals that I do not regularly encounter. I really enjoyed being able to discuss our lives both inside and outside of school. Although many of my cousins live in India, it was an eye-opening experience to communicate with students pursuing a very interesting course of learning and to understand what their daily lives look like. Moving forward, experiences like this would be very useful as I work to refine my Hindi and be able to communicate on a more detailed level with speakers of the language."

Milan, "I most enjoyed just talking to the NGO members because it was great practice and cool to speak to people in India. They were very useful to help us practice our conversational skills and we could also be useful to them by meeting up again and helping them with English." 

Ayush, "I really liked this year’s NGO, even more than the past semesters. I feel like the past semester we mainly tried to teach the younger students about English and did not make a large effort in getting to know them or having a long conversation with them. In this NGO, we added the aspect of being light hearted by adding idiom examples, while also getting to know them on a deeper level. We had one on one talks with students and really conversed with them and answered a lot of questions that they had about our life in America."

This event was supported and funded by Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Duke Service-learning.