Offered:

  • Introductory Urdu 103 is offered in Terms 1 (Feb - Apr) and 3 (Aug - Sep) each year.

Date & Time:

  • Our Term 1 course meets on Wednesdays from 12:00-1:30pm beginning on 15 Feb 2023 (New Zealand time). The course meets for 8 consecutive weekly sessions. If you live outside of New Zealand and wish to Zoom in to our live class sessions, check the nearest local Time Zone equivalent below.

Time Zone equivalents:

for live-streaming Zoom Sessions from New Zealand. If your Time Zone doesn't suit our live-streamed class, you can also access our courses by watching the live-recorded sessions that are posted to the course webpage each week, usually the next day.

  • Honolulu, Hawai’i: begins Tue 14 Feb 2023, 1:00-2:30pm

  • US Pacific: begins Tue 14 Feb 2023, 3:00-4:30pm

  • US Central: begins Tue 14 Feb 2023, 5:00-6:30pm

  • US Eastern: begins Tue 14 Feb 2023, 6:00-7:30pm

  • London, UK: begins Tue 14 Feb 2023, 11:00pm-12:30am

  • New Delhi, India: begins Wed 15 Feb 2023, 4:30-6:00am

  • Bangkok, Thailand: begins Wed 15 Feb 2023, 6:00-7:30am

  • Singapore & Shanghai: begins Wed 15 Feb 2023, 7:00-8:30am

  • Tokyo, Japan: begins Wed 15 Feb 2023, 8:00-9:30am

  • Sydney, Australia: begins Wed 15 Feb 2023, 10:00-11:30am

Description:

  • Our Introductory Urdu 103 course is for beginners and specifically designed for those who already know how to read and write in the Urdu Nastaʿlīq (نستعلیق) script, and have studied some basic grammar and vocabulary. It continues on build upon the foundations of Introductory Urdu 101 & 102. This course continues with reading, writing and conversational practice, introductory grammar and new vocabulary.

  • Those who may be already familiar with the Urdu script (e.g. may know Arabic or Farsi), but who do not know introductory Urdu grammar and vocabulary, may also chose to enrol in this Urdu 103 course.

  • Subsequent Term courses of Introductory Urdu (i.e. our Introductory Urdu 104 courses and additional Intermediate Urdu course offerings) continue with reading and writing, more complex grammatical constructions, new vocabulary, and learning additional conversational skills.

YouTube Stars Karl Rock & Manisha Endorse EarthDiverse!

8 January 2023


Meet our Instructor:

Executive Director, Senior Lecturer Dr Todd Nachowitz, PhD

Dr Todd Nachowitz, PhD, is the Founder and Executive Director of EarthDiverse. Todd is a Hamilton-based lecturer, anthropologist, environmentalist and diversity educator. He previously taught in Religious Studies at the University of Waikato, teaching courses on Comparative Religion and Religious Fundamentalism & Extremism. Todd holds a Masters Degree in Development Anthropology from Syracuse University in upstate New York (1991) and a PhD from the University of Waikato (2015) in Political Science and Public Policy where he completed his thesis on diversity governance and the Indian diaspora in New Zealand.

Prior to settling in New Zealand in 1995, Todd lived and worked in the United States, India, Pakistan and Nepal. He spent 11 years in South Asia as the Academic Director for university study-abroad programmes in Varanasi, India (for the University of Wisconsin-Madison); Lahore, Pakistan (for the University of California-Berkeley); and Kathmandu, Nepal (for School for International Training, based in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA) focusing on language, culture and religion.

Todd speaks Hindi and Urdu, and is a specialist in comparative world religions and the history, religions, languages and cultures of South Asia. He also currently teaches our Hindi and Urdu language courses and the Religious Diversity courses at EarthDiverse.

Location:

This class is a hybrid class with both in-person sessions in our classrooms and streamed live via Zoom.

All in-person classes are held at the EarthDiverse offices and classrooms located at 401 Anglesea Street, Hamilton Central, Hamilton (located just north of the Hamilton Central Bus Station) (entrance is located on the side of the building, see map below). Those looking for parking for our evening classes can park just in front of the building in any of the available car parks. Daytime parking can be found in our dedicated car parks, or free 2-hour on-street daytime parking can be found just in front on Anglesea Street.
Location

Distance Learning:

This course has distance-learning options for those unable to attend the live class sessions in Hamilton, New Zealand. Students have three options for attending our courses once they have registered:

  • Attend in-person classes in our Hamilton classrooms at the regularly scheduled day and time.

  • Attend our live on-line classroom sessions via Zoom at the regular scheduled day and time.

  • Watch the live-recorded class sessions at your leisure, at a time, day and place more suited to your schedule.

Distance-Learning options:

  • In addition to our in-person classes in Hamilton, our courses offer distance learning options for those unable to attend classes in-person. Live-streamed Hamilton classes are available via free Zoom software for those living outside the Waikato. Live-streaming allows you to participate fully in your own learning, ask questions of the instructor and participate fully in the same way as if you were in the physical classroom.

  • Those unable to attend the scheduled date and time of the actual class sessions, or those who need to miss a class or two due to previous engagements or unexpected illness, can watch any or all of the live-recorded video sessions on their computers, laptops, tablets or mobile devices and study at their own pace and in their own time.

  • Detailed instructions on how to access our distance learning components will be sent after completing your registration. There are no additional fees for this service. However, distance learners will need access to a desktop or laptop computer with a good quality web-camera (tablet devices and mobile phones can also access our live-streamed classes), a built-in microphone (most modern laptops have built-in microphones) or a headset with a microphone. You will also need to download and install the free Zoom software on your computer or device. Those accessing the video recordings will be able to do so with a simple web browser on any device.

Pricing options:

All prices in New Zealand dollars and includes GST. Unwaged includes students, seniors and retirees.

Course curriculum:

Week by week new material will be posted throughout the duration of the course. Video recordings of each weekly session will be posted here after 1-2 days after each class.

    1. EarthDiverse Course Information

    2. EarthDiverse Zoom instructions

    1. 2022 Term 3 updated Introductory Urdu text by Todd Nachowitz, PhD

    2. Link to access Quizlet EarthDiverse Urdu flashcard sets:

Additional course info:

  • Videos and PDF content of class presentations or whiteboard notes are uploaded weekly after each live session.
  • Begins on Wed 15 Feb 2023
  • NZ time: Wednesdays 12:00 - 1:30pm

Notes:

  • Those who cannot make the class meeting day and time via live Zoom sessions may consider accessing this course through the weekly recorded video sessions. Class videos are posted within 24 hours of each live class session and are available for your own personal learning session on a day and time of your choosing.

Materials:

  • The course fee includes all teaching materials.

  • An “Introductory Urdu” text, written by Dr Todd Nachowitz, is included in the course fees. These are currently being distributed as PDF files as the courses progress and will eventually comprise a completed Introductory Urdu textbook.

  • You will only require a pen or pencil, a notebook for taking your own class notes, and a loose-leaf binder. Any notes that our instructor writes on the class whiteboard will be emailed to you as a digital PDF file so that you can print these out at home and add them to your own notebook.

Prerequisites:

  • Prerequisites for this course are: completion of Urdu 101 & 102.

  • There are no prerequisites if you can already read and write in Urdu (e.g. are already familiar with the Arabic or Farsi script) and have sufficient introductory grammar, vocabulary and basic conversational ability.