Swahili
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AAL 121 - 1/2/3 - 20: Swahili I / First-Year Swahili
COURSE
DESCRIPTION: This is the beginner's Swahili
class, and is open to undergraduate and graduate
students. There are three courses in sequence from
Fall to Spring. Grads register as 410-1,2,3, section
23. The course presents the essentials of modern
Standard Swahili grammar while proficiency in the
language is developed. The expectation is that by the
end of the first year, a diligent student will be
able to acquire "novice high" ACTFL rating in oral proficiency, along with
basic literacy skills. The course is organized on the
national standard first-year text, Swahili: A
Foundation for Speaking, Reading, and Writing, by
Thomas Hinnebusch and Sarah Mirza. A significant
amount of work for the course involves accessing the
class's dedicated Blackboard website and interacting
with multimedia resources there.
PROJECTS: Three weekly meetings as a group for questions,
discussion, small group conversational practice, and
presentation of course text material. Students
will perform some course assignments, take some
tests, interact with digital audio and video files,
take part in "bulletin board"-type
discussion, and create a personal Web pages within
NU's Blackboard website dedicated to the class.
PREREQUISITES: None for 121-1; appropriate Swahili study background
for further quarters. Course may be taken P/N if not
used to satisfy WCAS or Speech (RTVF majors only)
language proficiency requirements.
TEACHING
METHOD: Students attend three full-class sessions
each week, and one additional small-group meeting in
the MMLC, to be scheduled at the beginning of the
quarter. The goal in class sessions is to shift from
English to Swahili as the medium of instruction and
group interaction. There are oral, writtern,
audiovisual and computer-based exercises, written
homework assignments and projects, and regular
quizzes and longer tests.
EVALUATION
METHOD: Attendance in lectures and labs,
participation in classroom exercises, performance on
homework, quizzes, tests and special projects will
all count towards the final grade. Tests and
assignments during the course are intended primarily
as means of discovering and correcting problems.
There is an ongoing assessment of oral proficiency
skills in classroom and lab sessions, so attendance
in group meetings is crucial. In addition to brief
written quizzes in class, there will be a period-long
(50 min.) writing exercise at mid-term and the end of
the term. Classes are held during Reading Week, but
there is no two-hour written final exam in Fall and
Winter--only at the end of the Spring term.
READING:
Required: Thomas Hinnebusch & Sarah Mirza, Swahili, A
Foundation for Speaking, Reading and Writing,
University Press of America, 1990 revised edition.
Recommended: Fredrick Johnson, Swahili-English Dictionary,
Oxford University Press. Derek Nurse & Thomas Spear, The Swahili,
Reconstructing the History and Language of an African
Society. 800-1500. University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1985.
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AAL 122 - 1/2/3 - 20: Swahili II / Second-Year Swahili
COURSE
DESCRIPTION: This is the second-year Swahili
course, and is open to undergraduate and graduate
students who have completed first-year Swahili or its
equivalent. Graduate students register as 410-1,2,3,
section 23. There are three courses in sequence from
Fall to Spring. The Web-based "electronic
textbook" for the course is designed by Dr.
Magdalena Hauner of the Dept. of African Languages
& Literature, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison. The
e-text is based on a popular modern Tanzanian novel
by Euphrase Kezilahabi, entitled Rosa Mistika.
There are three group meetings each week. Continuing
work on development of oral proficiency in Swahili;
the expectation is that by the end of the second
year, a diligent student will be able to acquire
skills described in the ACTFL ratings as "intermediate
mid."
PROJECTS: The Web-based textbook has certain exercises, drills,
and essay question projects, but assignments are
administered by the NU instructor, who provides
additional materials as well. Additionally, there is
an NU-sponsored Blackboard site dedicated to the NU
course, with its own resources available (multimedia
files, external web links, local course-based
discussion board and person webpage).
PREREQUISITES: AAL121 or equivalent (placement by instructor for the
latter) for 122-1; appropriate Swahili study
background for further quarters. Course may be taken
P/N if not used to satisfy CAS language proficiency
requirement. Successful completion of the Fall
quarter-course satisfies the Speech/RTVF department
foreign language proficiency requirement; completion
of 122-3 Spring with C- or better satisfies the WCAS
proficiency requirement.
TEACHING
METHOD: There are three classroom group meetings each
week. Swahili is the primary medium of instruction as
soon as possible in the course.
EVALUATION
METHOD: Attendance in lectures and labs,
participation in classroom exercises, performance on
homework, quizzes, tests and special projects will
all count towards the final grade. Tests and
assignments during the course are intended primarily
as means of discovering and correcting problems.
There is an ongoing assessment of oral proficiency
skills in classroom and lab sessions. The NU
instructor is solely responsible for the final course
grade report.
READING:
Required: A text copy of the novel which forms the basis of the
initial work in second-year Swahili, Rosa Mistika,
will be supplied by the instructor.
Recommended: Fredrick Johnson, Swahili-English Dictionary,
Oxford University Press, 1980; Kamusi ya Kiswahili
Sanifu, Oxford University Press, 1980
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AAL 121 - 1/2/3 - 20: Swahili III / Third-Year Swahili:
Introduction to Swahili Literature
COURSE
DESCRIPTION: This is the third-year course, and
is open to undergraduate and graduate students who
have completed second-year Swahili or its equivalent.
Graduate students register as 410-1,2,3 section
23. The course is an introductory survey of
classical and modern Swahili verbal arts--including
non-fiction prose and oral narrative performance as
well as poetic, narrative, and dramatic texts. It is
ordinarily but not necessarily taught in a
three-quarter sequence: Fall, oral verbal arts
tradition; Winter, classical literary tradition;
Spring, modern Standard Swahili literature.
PREREQUISITES: Swahili 122 (second-year), or the equivalent with the
consent of instructor.
TEACHING
METHOD: Students have three lecture hours each week.
Swahili is the medium of instruction. There are oral
and written classroom exercises, and written and
audio, video and computer homework assignments and
projects. There is some English-language background
reading expected, but most work involves texts or
other materials written or composed originally in
Swahili.
EVALUATION
METHOD: Attendance in lectures, participation in
classroom exercises, performance on homework and
special projects will all count towards the final
grade. However, any tests or assignments during the
course are intended primarily as means of discovering
and correcting problem areas. Evaluation is based
both on an ongoing assessment of general interactive
proficiency skills as well as on oral and written
tests of comprehension and analysis performed in
connection with specific coursework materials.
READING:
Required: Fredrick Johnson, Swahili-English Dictionary,
Oxford University Press, 1980 ed. (for AAL 223-2 only:) Ibrahim Noor Shariff, Tungo
Zetu, Red Sea Press, 1988. other texts provided by instructor
Recommended: Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili, Kamusi ya
Kiswahili Sanifu, Oxford University Press-East
Africa, 1981.
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