The American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) is an organization focused on promoting American scholarship on India and offers a myriad of language learning programs in South Asian languages. Lucknow, Jaipur, and Kolkata’s AIIS Language Centers are partner institutions of the Critical Language Scholarship offered by the State Department for Urdu, Hindi, and Bangla respectively. In addition to the languages I have mentioned above, AIIS has numerous other language centers across India ranging from Gujarat to Tamil Nadu which are not partner institutions of the CLS program. This past summer, I was studying Punjabi in Chandigarh, Punjab through AIIS from June to August.
In this blog post, I want to discuss some features of the AIIS program that make them a great choice for American students who are interested in studying abroad in India. The program is extremely structured, with 4 hours of class per day and two one-hour one-on-one tutoring sessions with your instructor per week. On every other weekend, there are cultural trips to local heritage sites. For example, I visited Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, Punjab. For the beginner to intermediate levels, the four hours of class are divided into the several different functions of language learning: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. While the classes and timings are extremely structured, what activities you complete in class vary day to day, so it does not become monotonous. While we work on listening several times a week, our listening materials vary from movie scenes to news segments. Over the course of eight weeks, an extremely detailed syllabus and every single skill needed for learning a new language is thoroughly covered.
While the classes are rigorous and there is homework every day, there is ample time for exploring your city as well. Class begins at 9 AM and ends at 1 or 3 PM depending on if you have a personal tutoring session that day. As a result, you have many evenings and every other weekend of the program available to explore. In addition, AIIS also has a mid-term break where you have three days off. During my midterm break, I was able to travel to McLeod Ganj and Dharamshala in the neighboring state of Himachal Pradesh. Essentially, your language skills will progress exponentially, but you will also be able to take part in local culture and have opportunities to travel.
AIIS staff are also incredibly helpful, caring people. From helping you sort issues with your host family to locating laundry services in your new city, they will do everything they can to help you acclimate to life in a completely different country. Towards the beginning of my program, I got stuck at a cafe with an almost dead phone and not enough money to cover the cost of my meal. The next day, my program teachers asked why I hadn’t called them because they’ve in fact helped students get out of similar situations in the past. While AIIS staff are your teachers, they often do much more than what is included in their job description because they want students to reach out to them in sticky situations.
Through AIIS, my Punjabi skills progressed exponentially because of my in-class learning but I was also able to quickly acclimate to India because of the out-of-class learning as well. I highly recommend studying through the American Institute of Indian Studies if you are looking to study abroad in India because of the efficacy in the classroom and support outside of the classroom offered by the program.
Simran Bhathal, B.A. in International Affairs
Sigur Center 2023 Language Fellow
India
