Travel to Karachi

 

کراچی کا سفر

Thematic Unit: Students will go on an exchange program in Pakistan. The host family lives in Karachi and students will visit a few places (Mohatta Palace, Zainab Market, Mausoleum of Quaide Azam etc.). Prior to the visit students will make an itinerary and explore the geography of the city and the places they want to visit. Once in Delhi, students will engage in interaction, orally and in writing, to seek and provide information about places to visit and how to get to different places, etc., to put into practice the knowledge gained prior to the visit.

 Proficiency Level: Intermediate Low

Time: (3X75 min.)

Objectives: Students can:

  • identify and speak briefly about places of interest and daily life in the city.
  • read a map of the city and are able to estimate the time and the distance between different places.
  • explain the fastest way of getting from one place to another depending on their location.
  • ask for and give directions.  

Language Targets:

  • conjunctive participle verb stem + kar
  • relative-correlative sentences: jab…tab
  • infinitive + postposition: jaane ke baad

Performance Assessment:

Students write an email about their itinerary and why they chose the places of interest to visit

  • Students write a one or two day itinerary based on their knowledge of the points of interest, the distance and time needed to visit the places in Karachi
  • Students use a map to give directions over the phone to a lost friend
  • Students explain why they like the city.

Learning Scenarios:

  1. Personal travel experience: To introduce travel-related vocabulary and expressions, share with students a personal experience, real or imaginary, visiting a place in the target country. Use maps, pictures, gestures and other visuals to model the language and make the input comprehensible. Draw and label your itinerary to reinforce the vocabulary. Explain new language structures.
  2. Randomly call on students to have them share short personal travel experiences.  Have students, working in small groups, select a place they have been to and, following your model, draw and label to show their itinerary.  Upon completion, have students share their itinerary with a group next to them.  Reinforce the language as needed to make sure students are ready for the jigsaw activity that follows.
  3. Jigsaw: Divide students into four or five groups, depending on the number of students in class, and assign each group a different topic and reading resources to work on, such as city location, district/s, bazaars, parks and zoo, museums, historical sites, etc. Instruct students in each group to plan an itinerary based on their topic for a specific number of days (preferably one or two days) from Zainab Market as the starting point.
  4. Once the tasks are completed, regroup the students. Make sure each group has at least one student from each of the original groups. Instruct student experts to share with the other members of the new group their itinerary. Provide students with copies of blank charts to record specific information about different itineraries.
  5. Have students summarize in an email the outline of their plans and the reason they chose specific places to visit. Pair up students and instruct them to share e-mails and critique each other’s work. Roam around during this exchange to assess students’ comprehension and needs. Do a mini lesson based on the most needed areas.
  6. Have students watch a video clip ‘Karachi hai’ from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIkWuWawIGo&feature=related to become familiar with the vocabulary and expressions related to directions such as, north, east, south, west, coastline, water front, sidewalk, crossing, underpass, field, sign, roundabout, etc. 
  7. Have students role play to practice conjunctive participle constructions (jaa kar, pahuNc kar), use of infinitives with postpositions (pahuuNcne ke baad) and relative clauses like (.. tab…, jaise…vaise…).
  8. After they arrive in the country, send out an e-mail to your students about how to meet you at your place in Karachi. Have students complete a true/false activity based on your e-mail to assess their comprehension.
  9. Following this model e-mail, instruct students to exchange e-mails (incorporating the new structures and vocabulary) with a friend about how to reach one another’s place taking the metro. Collect students’ e-mails to assess their comprehension and facility with the vocabulary and expressions.
  10. Do a mini lesson on the areas where students need reinforcement. Have students review their own e-mails and make any needed changes.
  11. Provide students with a map of Karachi showing different landmarks and have students find out different routes to selected sites. Then assign students scenarios for role play.
  • Role play situation #1, one student just arrived at the airport and needs to reach their friend’s place and called on the phone to ask for directions, the other student gives directions.
  • Role play situation #2, one student is lost around the Zainab Market and would like to reach the University; the other student is local who guides him or her.
  • Culminating activity: Instruct students to compose e-mails about their days in Karachi for homework and attach photographs of the places and people they visited and met or make a timeline on Face book.

Based on a lesson prepared for West Windsor-Plainsboro STARTALK Hindi and Urdu Student Program (Rajni Bhargava < rb154@nyu.edu>; Nusrat Suhail <nsohail06@hotmail.com>)