This course is not meant for self-learners who want to learn Tamil without an instructor. There are no keys, for example, to check the answers of the exercises designed to be done at home. Grammatical explanations for the colloquial Tamil of Jim-Raja Conversations are outside the course materials and are given to learners who request the author of the course for the Grammar Notes giving an assurance that it is for personal use and not to be shared with anyone. For the right answers to the exercises the learner will have to consult a speaker of Tamil. A comprehensive and consolidated grammar is under preparation and will be eventually uploaded.
The best way for an Instructor is to use the materials in the Course as resources for teaching Tamil. These digital materials may to be supplemented with audio, video and print materials from outside the Course by any Instructor who uses the Course for teaching.
The materials are arranged in the web site in alphabetical order, not in any pedagogical order of learning. They cover two years of Tamil: Introductory and Intermediate, which will have a total of 200 hours of instructional time in the class. A Basic Tamil Reader in the Course is for the Intermediate level and the rest for the Introductory level. Later materials of the introductory level may carry over to the Intermediate level, i.e. beyond the first 100 hours of instruction.
The materials relate to informal or colloquial and formal or literary varieties of Tamil. An Instructor could use them sequentially – for example, learning formal Tamil after learning informal Tamil. The preferred way of using the Course is by switching between the varieties; the entry point of switching and the extent of switching will be reflective of the Instructor’s teaching strategy.
The primary material for the introductory level is Jim-Raja Conversations in colloquial Tamil along with their audio recordings. These Conversations have been provided also in formal Tamil using conventional spelling. These could be used in switching as well as Elementary Texts and Tales, which are in formal Tamil. The remaining two sections are Elementary Texts and Tales. Elementary texts are in formal, but simplified, Tamil and they follow the story line of the Colloquial Conversations. They would be the entry points when the learner switches to the learning of formal Tamil. Tales may come in at different points depending on the grammatical grade level the learner is in Colloquial Tamil. They are rendered in audio in two versions of reading the tales and telling the tales. These may be used to practice switching between reading and speaking.
The Conversations in colloquial Tamil are in Tamil script and they are written using a spelling system that is believed to facilitate pedagogically the learner to learn the conventional spelling in formal Tamil. The rules of pronunciation are explained in the Alphabet lessons for the speaking units; the rules will help the learner to approximate the pronunciation of the words colloquially. Alphabet lessons are in the reading units also to learn the reading pronunciation, which is different from speaking pronunciation. The correspondence between words and grammatical forms in colloquial and literary Tamil is given in one of the handouts of Grammar Aid. The rest of the handouts in the Grammar Aid section are summarized information on selected grammatical systems that underlie the organization of the Conversations in the Course.
The Conversations are available in translation to help self-learners understand the meaning of them when there are difficulties in getting the meaning from the words and their gloss given at the end of each Conversation. The translations of the whole Conversation are to be used for consultation when the learner wants to check the correctness of the comprehension of the Conversations.
Conversations for additional practice are for use to have extra conversational practice. The self-learner may need a partner for practice.
The section called Vocabulary Aid has materials to enrich the vocabulary of the learner and to help in using dictionaries.