LILA : A milestone in IT based Language Learning ....

LILA, Learn Indian Languages through Artificial Intelligence, is a milestone in language learning using Artificial Intelligence Technology. Developed by the Applied Artificial Intelligence Group of C-DAC, and funded by the Department of Official Language (DOL), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India. The windows versions of LILA Prabodh, Praveen and Pragya are Multimedia based Intelligent Self-Tutoring packages for Hindi.

LILA Praboth, Praveen and Pragya impart fundamental as well as advanced functional knowledge of Hindi to enable learners to express themselves in Hindi effectively. Learners attain this level of proficiency due to the constant interaction with multi-media based presentations adopted in these packages to evolve reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.

LILA-Hindi Prabodh (Windows Version), was launched by the Hon’ble President of India to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Hindi, the Official Language of the Union, on 14th September 1999. It was also awarded the CSI-Infosys Award for Best Shrink Wrapped Software Product and CSI National IT Award, 2000.

LILA-Hindi Prabodh has been developed to impart basic knowledge with regard to the alphabet writing and reading, classified vocabulary related to animals, birds, colours, musical instruments, common verbs, flowers, fruits, rivers, well known places, months, relationships, seasons, parts of body, numerals, days, ministries, offices, designations with a memory game and exhaustive exercises. It consists of 37 graded lessons and an online dictionary.

Hindi alphabets are taught with the help of a tracer, which sketches each alphabet on the screen in the sequence of writing strokes. It consists of two sections: Write and Read. In the Write section, alphabets are taught according to the shape similarity and sequential manner. the Read section includes teaching of consonants, vowels, vowel signs (maatraas), conjunct consonants, nasalisations, and word formation. They are taught with sound and position wise pronunciation, i.e. initial, middle and final positions in word.

The Lesson Module is the heart of the whole package, which is more comprehensive and enriched with pedagogically controlled and graded 37 lessons. At the end of each lesson a test is provided. The user has to pass the test, in order to move on to the next lesson.

LILA-Hindi Praveen is the second in the series of multi-media based intelligent self-tutoring package for learning Hindi as a second language. It is a full-length second level Hindi course specially designed for government and corporate employees, but is also useful for those desirous of learning advanced level Hindi after acquiring the initial level of competence in the language or completing the initial level package of LILA-Hindi Prabodh.

The third advanced level package in this series is LILA-Hindi Pragya (Windows version). This is also based on the multi-media. The course material is divided into five parts:

1. Review Lessons, which recapitulate the relevant linguistic information

2. Drafting of correspondence in Hindi

3. Noting in Hindi

4. Samples and descriptions of important proformas and templates of official drafts

5. English-Hindi technical terminology and expression.

The speech interface facility has been provided to learn the pronunciation and intonation of the words and sentences. To practice correct pronunciation, there is a Record and Compare facility which allows the user to record a word or sentence in his own voice and compare it with the standard pronunciation available in the package. For easy comprehension, every lesson has a video film running alongside the narrative.

An on-line Hindi-English dictionary is also available with meanings, grammatical category and pronunciation for easy reference. Cultural notes have also been incorporated to highlight various aspects of Indian Culture explained through pictures and text in the dictionary and lessons, wherever applicable.

Like all good teachers this package keeps track of the performance of students on an individual basis.

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