TO THE INSTRUCTOR Persian in Use is designed to cover one academic year of college level study. The breakdown of this book for semester-based instruction and quarter-based instruction is calculated as below:

Quarter System Fall Quarter Alphabet Lesson 1 Lesson 2

Winter Quarter Lesson 3 Lesson 4 Lesson 5 Lesson 6

Semester System Spring Quarter Lesson 7 Lesson 8 Lesson 9 Lesson 10

Winter Term Spring Term Alphabet Lesson 5 Lesson 6 Lesson 1 Lesson 7 Lesson 2 Lesson 8 Lesson 3 Lesson 9 Lesson 4 Lesson 10

THE INTRODUCTION The writing system is taught in the introduction. The alphabet and sounds are grouped together for easier instruction. Each group should be taught in one session (the first group is taught on the first day of class). Thus, the entire writing system will be covered in 7 sessions and session 8 will be assigned to the “Review Exercises”, “Parts of Speech” and “Basic Numbers”. When a new letter is introduced, the instructor writes the letter and the provided examples on the board, pronounces them several times and asks the students to repeat each word several times. The instructor then asks students to copy each word several times and monitors their hand writing one by one. The homework is re-writing each word 4-5 times. The instructor collects the homework of the previous session and corrects it (no grade is necessary). After teaching each group of the alphabet, a spelling/dictation quiz will be assigned for the following session. This dictation quiz covers only the words that have been covered in the new group. Each dictation quiz consists of 10 words and each word is worth 2 points (total 20). The dictation quiz should be performed at the beginning of each session and should take no more than 10 minutes. After a while, students will get used to the routine and have their blank paper ready for dictation when you enter the class! A short dialogue at the end of each group is practiced and role played the same session. At the end of each session, a couple of words from “Useful Words & Phrases” (at the end of the Introduction) can be introduced and practiced. “Parts of Speech” will be covered in session 8 after the alphabet is covered; there is no need to spend time on it. You can ask students to work on it at home and correct them together in class. This will prepare the students for understanding the part of speech in Persian a little easier. There is no need for a dictation quiz on numbers. If your sessions are shorter than an hour and a half and your class meets more than twice a day, you may need more than one session to cover each group of the alphabet and sounds. Always encourage your students to listen to the audio files available at the companion website at home to prepare for the quizes. LESSONS ONE THROUGH TEN Vocabulary: The instructor should read the new vocabulary in class and ask the students to repeat it several times. The new vocabulary needs to be accompanied by a dictation quiz the following session. The meaning of each word will also be included in the dictation. You can assign 2-3 vocabulary lists for

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each dictation quiz. The quiz will be performed at the beginning of the following session and should not take more than 10 minutes. The dictation quiz consists of 10 words that students need to write and translate. Each correct word has 1 point and the correct translation has another point (total 20 points). Certain vocabulary lists such as cardinal and ordinal numbers (Lessons 1 & 4), technology-related words (Lesson 5), instruction of exercises (Lesson 8), or idioms and street talk (Lesson 8) do not need to be included in the dictation quizes as they may be overwhelming for students. Only the written form of the words will be used in the spelling quiz. Interactive Dialogues: Each lesson begins with a set of interactive dialogues. In order to keep the students engaged, the dialogues include missing words that need to be filled in with the new vocabulary. It is best if the students are first asked to close their books and listen to the dialogue. The instructor then can briefly ask questions about what the students have just heard. For instance: Where is this dialogue taking place? What were the names of the dialogue participants? or a question about the gist such as what did you get out of the dialogue? This process does not need to take a lot of time. After that, students can open their books and listen to the instructor reading the dialogue again. If a line has missing words, the students need to find the missing information from the new vocabulary list. Students are then asked to read the dialogue and help the instructor translate the line that was just read. This way, the dialogue will be learned in an interactive way as opposed to a passive way. Dialogues are provided in spoken form and are followed by their written form. The instructor can draw students’ attention to the changes between written and spoken forms which are provided in red. The written forms also include missing information that needs to be filled in. Students then practice reading each dialogue in pairs or as a class (and possibly role play them). The instuctor should advise students to use the spoken form when speaking and use the written form when writing. In-class Reading: The “In-class Reading” texts are part of the actual lesson and are not an exercise. They need to be taught in class as part of the lesson. Some instructors prefer to teach the “In-class Reading” after teaching the grammar section. This is definitely a possibility especially if you feel that you have been doing similar tasks for both dialogues and in-class reading. If you want, you can cover the first grammatical point and then go back and cover the in-class reading. Grammar: Each grammar section provides usages of a certain grammatical point that is already introduced in the context of the interactive dialogues or the “In-class Reading”. The grammatical feature needs to be explained to the students and practiced. The grammar section includes “Writing & Pronunciation” rules which are intended to function as a grammar resource. Some of the “Writing and Pronunciation” rules are frequently used and need to be learned by students. However, some of these rules (such as in Lesson 5) may appear somewhat confusing for students so they can be briefly discussed, but students are not required to learned them as they may overwhelm them. The instructor can briefly mention them and move on. Exercises: Persian in Use contains a variety of activities and exercises such as drilling, dictation, filling in the blanks, picture description, cloze tests, matching, free writing, locating information, tasks, and translation. Activities are designed to reinforce all four skills. Each exercise is labeled with graphic symbols to demonstrate which skill is promoted in that exercise. In addition to the “In-class Reading”, Lessons 5-10 include additional authentic reading texts that function as a reading comprehension exercise or a cloze exercise to provide additional reinforcement of new vocabulary or grammatical points covered in that lesson. These texts are mainly authentic and different in nature. There are samples of a novel (‫ دایی جان ناپلئون‬in Lesson 6), film script (‫ علی َسنتوری‬in Lesson 10), or a play (‫ آرش‬in Lesson 10). The exercises are intentionally not labeled as “Home” or “Classroom” so that teachers have more freedom in choosing which exercise is to be done when, based on students’ needs and background.

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Cultural Points: Cultural points are provided in English so that students can read them on their own and they do not need to be covered during class time. However, certain cultural points such as Ta’ārof require more explanation and practice. Supplemental Material (Poem & Song): At the end of the lessons, a short poem and the lyrics of a song are introduced. The supplemental materials do not need to be covered in class as they function as cultural enrichment material. In an effort to provide level-appropriate content, the poem and song may not be about the theme of the lesson, but they are specifically chosen to include the grammatical point introduced in that lesson. This will provide a further opportunity for students to see how the grammatical points they have learned are used in real-life authentic content. Poems and song lyrics can serve as an excellent source for differentiated instruction. If you are teaching a class with heritage students who have prior knowledge of the language, poems and songs can be assigned to heritage learners as additional homework. While L2 learners are not required to work on the poem and song as homework, in order to provide a differentiated and more advanced curriculum to the heritage students you can ask them to work on the poem and songs. Heritage students can recite them, memorize them, analyze them, or simply translate them into English. Self-assessment Chart: At the end of each lesson, a self-assessment chart is provided that enables students to look back and reflect on the lesson to see which areas still need more work and how they plan to address their needs in order to fully master that lesson.

ACTIVITY TYPE As previously mentioned, all the activities of Persian in Use are labeled to reflect the skills that are reinforced through them. The following chart illustrates and explains these symbols and their purpose.

Headphone

Listening

This icon indicates that the content is available as an audio file on the companion website and students are required to listen to it. This icon indicates that students are required to pronounce the

Mouth

People talking

Book

Pencil

Pronunciation content aloud. Speaking

This icon indicates that students are required to speak in Persian, either as a pair or a group.

Reading

This icon indicates that students are required to read the content.

Writing

This icon indicates that students are required to write.

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