Looking at the future. Ideas for a Language Club/Cell. REPLY!

[Antariksh Bothale]

TL;DR: Read Mail and Reply

Hi folks. 

This group was made 4 years ago when I was a sophie. I have now graduated and, needless to say, most people who are in here have left insti or are about to do so. 

This group began as a bunch of people who wanted to learn French, and then slowly became a group for discussion of languages and cultures. I used to greatly enjoy conducting those French sessions back in 2nd and 3rd year and had several dreams and aspirations and what not for the group. However, due to the inherently long time that it takes to learn languages, and due to issues in scheduling a common hour for people spanning several years, programs and departments, any long term sustained learning activity was not feasible. We did try to do other things, such as scripts and popular linguistics sessions, but the group never took off the way I initially desired it to. 

Anyhow, long story short, we couldn't become what we wanted to earlier but let's make it happen now. The environment wasn't too conducive for starting new clubs in insti back when I was in 2nd or 3rd year. However, the outlook has changed considerably recently (which is a great thing), with new hobby clubs coming up all around. 

Nivvedan, who is the Insti Secy for Intl Relations this year, and Siddharth Joshi (3rdie, Chem) independently contacted me about starting some kind of a language club/group in the insti. 

I suggested they work a bit on it and come up with some kind of plan about the kinds of things that the club can do and engage enthu people in. 

I request everyone on this group who was involved with some language club activity in any way to please post your thoughts on what went wrong, what went right, what could the new guys do that would help. Anything, really. It would be pretty helpful.

Thanks

Antariksh

[Sham Thanekar]

Biggest problem is resources. If this is going to become a proper club, the conveners should keep a catalogue of language resources available on LAN with a review of each, so that people can select one and stick with it for a particular language. It wouldn't hurt either, if they could download said resources and make them available. Our library has plenty of resources too. Make a list.

Also, facilitate interaction between people learning any particular language. Create some means for people learning a language to find others doing the same and encourage them to help each other learn. Y'know, like a matrimonial site. 21 year old, smart, tall, dark and more-or-less handsome man looking for sexy single french learners in hostel 6.

Sham Thanekar
Final Year Undergraduate (dual degree)
Department of Chemical Engineering
IIT Bombay

Antariksh

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[Nivvedan]

Hi all,

Given the enthu that people seem to have for learning languages, the currently options available at the IR office is inadequate both in terms of capacity and scope. I realized that professional language class like the German, French, etc.. right now might not always be possible. In coordination with the GSAA(UG), we started informal Spanish classes this semester conducted by one of our postgrad students. We want to expand the scope of such informal learning and also be able to have professional institutions conduct classes in the institute on a paid basis (possibly subsidized by the institute).

We had talks with the DoSA regarding a preliminary version of what we presently call the "Languages Cell" (looking for fancier and better names!) and got his written approval for the same. Prof. Yajnik said that funding should also not be a problem. The "Language Cell" as I envision it has the following broad aims. This is of course subject to discussion and revision.

1. To facilitate students and other linguistic enthusiasts of the campus community learn Indian and foreign languages by coordinating with the conduction of professional / informal language classes.
2. To serve as a platform where participants will be able to learn languages informally from their peers. (A Hobby club aspect)
3. To conduct workshops, movies screenings and other events promoting linguistic learning and appreciating linguistic diversity.

We will be having a meeting soon to discuss prospects. I request all enthusiastic members to kindly attend to better shape the... let's call it a group.

Regards,
Nivvedan
Institute Secretary, International Relations
+91 98207 22103

PS: Sorry for the delayed response. Email delivery seems to have been disabled on this group. Weird.

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[Arpan Saha]

How about 'The Language Gate' aka 'Báb-L' for a name?

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Arpan Saha | Junior Undergraduate | Department of Physics | IIT Bombay

http://arpansaha.wordpress.com/