Understanding the gap between Second Year and Accelerated Classes

Mansi Bajaj

University of Texas

Students of Second-Year and Heritage/ Accelerated Classes move into third year with the expectations to have the same language abilities. This presentation will highlight the difference between language levels of speaking, listening, reading and writing of the Second-Year and Heritage classes. The presentation will further demonstrate that audio-visual learning resources can be used differently in the Second-Year and Heritage classes to achieve similar language abilities by the end of the year.

BIO: Mansi Bajaj joined the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas, Austin in 2019 as a Lecturer of Hindi and has been teaching Hindi as a foreign language. More recently, she is focusing on foreign language teaching and is on the panel of “Tackling Online Instruction of Less Commonly Taught Languages in a New Academic Year” at the Department of Asian Studies, UT. She is an active participant of workshops on “Diversity and Inclusivity in Language Classrooms”. She is also the supervisor of Hindi-Urdu language table at UT which enables students to emerge as active users of the language by developing their active communicative competence. She submitted her PhD in Linguistics in 2019 at the University of Delhi, which is under evaluation. She has previously worked with the Department of Asian Studies at UT-Austin as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) in the year 2014–15. In her spare time, Bajaj has been actively enhancing K12 programs in Texas by creating Open Educational Resources and Credentialing Exams for South Asian LCTLs.