YHS STARTALK HINDI PROGRAM 2019 Students, parents, and instructors assembled at Gwyn-Nor Elementary School, North Wales, PA for a reunion. The objective of this gathering was to review Hindi skills of STARTALK learners and share new ideas with classmates and parents. The students enthusiastically attended the event. They made speaking presentations about their experiences. Accompanied by their parents they arrived early morning on November 2nd at the school auditorium. They were welcomed by Ashok Ojha, Program Director, YHS STARTALK Hindi Program and instructors.
Launching the activities of the day the program director reviewed the content on program website and advised parents to take advantage of resources for the benefit of improving their children’s Hindi proficiency skills. The resources include audio-visual daily activities recorded during this year’s program, online learning resources and the online tools for Hindi learning. These resources were freely available on the organizational website: www.21stcenturyhindi.com.

“These materials don’t require log in by users. Our goal is to provide interesting reading and listening lessons for all learners. Every year we develop learning resources for continuous language practices by students”, said Ojha.

A number of students including Ram Hegde, Vansh and Vidhi Aeri, Ronak Demagu, Nithya and Vidwat Gudlavalleti, Hali and Kaya Patel, Abhinav and Pujitha Medi, Vraj and Tirath Patel availed the opportunity to present their speaking skills in Hindi.
“After listening to their presentations we can say that our students have retained much of their speaking and reading skills. It takes motivation and parents support to accomplish it”, said instructor Akhila Sekhar. “We introduced various learning improvement materials that we have archived on our website: www.21stcenturyhindi.com and continue to provide more. Our goal is to develop and upload appropriate material for Hindi learners for all students to practice freely.”

YHS STARTALK HINDI program attracted considerable number of learners from the Lansdale, PA area, many of them are siblings. Nitya and Vivat Gudlavalleti, have attended two consecutive STARTALK programs. “They have gained a good amount of speaking and reading proficiency from this program”, said their mom Haritha. Other parents, Manohar Demagu, Babu Medi, Priya Muddygal, Saujanaya Popella and Mukti Patel also expressed similar feelings.

Bina Bengali, who conducted cultural activities for students during the program, advised students to practice language and cultural activities. Bina, who is acquainted with a number of STARTALK parents, offered to coach learners during the post program period. She said students can avail many opportunities to learn cultural practices while celebrating festivals.

STARTALK instructor, Seema Vashishth, expressed her happiness over the progress students made while learning at the program. She said that the program theme, ‘A virtual Trip to India-North, South, East and West’ was very appropriate for students to learn about India. Akila Sekar thanked everyone for attending the event.