Rakesh Ranjan is a Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of the Hindi Urdu Program. He received a Ph.D. in Linguistics (Some Morphological and Syntactic Features of Mauritian Bhojpuri) from University of Delhi (1997). He has been teaching Hindi language, literature and linguistics to American graduate and undergraduate students for the last fifteen years. He began his teaching career as the Head (Program Director) of the Hindi Language Program of the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) in Varanasi, India in 1993. He joined the Hindi Program at Emory in 1999. He has designed and supervised many Hindi programs. He has been active in academic projects of the South Asian Language Resource Center (SALRC) and the South Asian Language Teachers Association (SALTA). His research interests are Hindi pedagogy, issues of heritage learners and South Asian diaspora.
Recent Projects:
The newly created Hindi and Urdu Audio-Visual Modules are serving as innovative resources for teachers and learners of Hindi and Urdu. These stunning and colorful video clips are based on real-life situations with varied linguistic, social, and cultural content. They are short, unscripted, unrehearsed, and offer samples of spontaneous and authentic Hindi speech. They are based on ACTFL guidelines and the themes of National Standards (5Cs).
The STARTALK-Columbia Hindi Audio-Visual Module Project contains 42 thematic modules. The web link is http://hindistartalk.lrc.columbia.edu/http://hindistartalk.lrc.columbia.edu/
The AIIS-Columbia Urdu Modules Project introduces 28 thematic modules of Urdu language and culture. The web link is http://urduaiis.lrc.columbia.edu/http://urduaiis.lrc.columbia.edu/