OER Catalog

Basic Vietnamese is a comprehensive, interactive textbook designed for true novice and low-novice learners of the Vietnamese language. The book aims to help students achieve Novice high or Intermediate low proficiency according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) standards. With 15 chapters and nine pronunciation sections, this resource covers essential grammar structures, practical vocabulary, and cultural insights.

Each chapter in the book follows a consistent pattern, featuring conversations, useful vocabulary, grammar structures, culture notes (when applicable), and further practice exercises. The book introduces phonetics in the first part, across nine separate sections. Specific learning outcomes are provided for each chapter, focusing on communication goals. Interactive activities and multimedia materials, compiled and designed with the help of native speakers, ensure authenticity and engaging learning experiences.

Drawing from a combination of pedagogical approaches, Basic Vietnamese encourages both inductive and deductive learning, allowing students to grasp language concepts through context and analysis. The book emphasizes the development of all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), fostering well-rounded proficiency.

This open textbook is intended for beginning students of Arabic who have already covered their literacy skills and ready to explore language in a lively and interactive approach. This OER is unique in its presentation of Arabic language content through theme-based modules. Each theme is addressed through vocabulary, grammar, reading, speaking, culture, and writing components. Each chapter includes self-check embedded quizzes that help learners digest language concepts. The book is also designed with teachers in mind. Each chapter includes pair work and group tasks that the teacher can implement in class and other parts that can be assigned as homework. The focus of the book is to establish a sound basis in Standard Arabic structure in a simplified and sequenced approach. Additionally, each theme will include a conversation section in which a module on Egyptian Arabic is presented. While developing a solid foundation in written Arabic, the Egyptian Arabic component will enhance students’ spoken fluency and enrich their cultural experience in their language learning journey.

This open textbook is intended for beginning students of Arabic in their first semester.  This OER is unique in its presentation of Arabic language content through theme-based modules. Each theme is addressed through vocabulary, grammar, reading, speaking, and writing components. Each chapter includes self-check embedded quizzes that help learners digest language concepts. The book is also designed with teachers in mind. Each chapter includes pair work and group tasks that the teacher can implement in class and other parts that can be assigned as homework. The focus of the book is to build literacy in Standard Arabic structure in a simplified and sequenced approach while emphasizing speaking skills. By the end of this course, students will be well prepared for building their competence in a sequenced and organized manner in the following parts of this series.

Basic Hindi is an online, interactive, and tech-enhanced textbook that promotes speaking, listening, reading, writing, and cultural skills. Each Chapter in this book has clear stated learning outcomes, a review of previous chapters, reading/listening sections, study abroad section, relevant grammatical items, and cultural notes. The pedagogical approach in the book is mixed and informed by the socio-cultural approaches and the generative approaches of the Second Language Acquisition theory. The mixed theoretical backgrounds match diverse learning and teaching philosophies and styles. Following the learning outcomes guided by American Council of Teaching Foreign Language (ACTFL), this textbook aims for the novice learners to attain intermediate low to mid-level proficiency level. The textbook incorporates pictures, audio-visual materials, and activities developed on the H5P platform to keep learners engaged.

This book contains eight chapters. In the first five chapters, each chapter is divided into two parts. The first part is based on the conversation and presents the grammar and vocabulary necessary to deal with everyday situations. The Cambodian script and sound system are introduced in the second part of each chapter.

Each chapter has clear learning outcome, a review of the previous chapter, the review of the vocabulary, grammar points and cultural notes. The layout of each chapter is followed by three modes of communication (interpretative, interpersonal and presentation mode) across the four skills. Each chapter also has a listening, speaking, reading and grammar section, followed by interactive activities. Cultural notes and a few online available materials related to the theme of the chapter is also introduced. Each chapter ends with key vocabulary/expression and Grammar summary. Vocabulary in reading and listening is built in the conversation with the English translation so that learners can infer the meaning in the given context. Learning activities have been developed by using h5p so that learners can get immediate constructive feedback.

Elementary Chinese II is aimed at those who have learned Chinese as a second/foreign language for one semester, using the OER textbook “Elementary Chinese I“.

This open textbook contains six main lessons, including topics such as school life, shopping, transportation, weather, eating out, and asking and giving directions. They are organized in a straightforward and well-structured manner that are easy to follow. Within each lesson, there are a set of two dialogues or a set of one dialogue plus one narration. The texts of the dialogues or narrations are created to provide real-life Chinese language to beginning learners. After the texts, vocabulary words are listed for them to study and review. Grammatical points are explained in English and example sentences are provided for students to understand. Each dialogue or narration ends with culture notes where learners can read and better understand the target text.

This open textbook is designed for beginners learning Chinese as a second/foreign language. This book aims to introduce learners to standard Chinese pronunciation, character knowledge, basic conversational phrases, grammar and vocabulary use, and cultural knowledge. Throughout the eight chapters, learners will explore: greetings and self-introduction, hobbies, nationalities, family members and occupations, inviting friends to dinner, talking about food and beverage, making phone calls, and talking about classes and exams. Learning activities include audio recordings so students can listen to the pronunciation of vocabulary words and observe dialogue between speakers. The book also includes videos with captions, allowing learners to listen, watch, and read. Original interactive activities have been created by the author to facilitate the practice of target vocabulary and dialogues.

Basic Urdu is a theme-based, interactive open-source online textbook for the true novice learners of the Urdu language. The book aims to help true novice learners of the Urdu language to achieve intermediate low to mid-level American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) proficiency level. The book has eight chapters. Chapter 1 focuses on the Urdu script. Chapters 2 to 8 follow a similar pattern. They all begin with stated goals followed by three to four readings and listening, followed by grammar points. Reading and listening sections have the vocabulary, pre- and post-activities which follow a combination of pedagogical approaches to language teaching. It also has grammatical points so that users can build overall language proficiency inductively or deductively. Each chapter ends with cultural notes and extra online resources. The book has several interactive activities with in-built feedback for independent learners.