BSEH Secondary Urdu flashcards

34 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Izafat construction

A Persian-origin linking device joining two nouns or a noun and adjective, marked by a small kasra-like sign: باغِ بہار, خانۂ خدا. It signals possession or description in formal and literary Urdu.

Ergative ne

The postposition نے marks the subject of a transitive verb in perfective tenses. With نے, the verb agrees with the object in gender and number, not with the subject.

Aspirated consonant contrast

Urdu distinguishes plain and aspirated stops, written as digraphs such as کھ, گھ, تھ, دھ. Aspiration changes meaning, so بال and بھال are separate words, not variants.

Oblique case

A noun form used after postpositions and before plural markers, e.g. لڑکا becoming لڑکے in لڑکے نے. The oblique marks grammatical dependency rather than a new lexical meaning.

Radif and qafiya

In a ghazal, the qafiya is the rhyme word and the radif is a repeated word or phrase following it in both lines of each sher. Together they define the ghazal's sound pattern.

Matla and maqta

Matla is the opening couplet of a ghazal, where both lines rhyme. Maqta is the closing couplet, which conventionally contains the poet's takhallus, or pen name.

Mir Taqi Mir

An eighteenth-century Delhi poet called Khuda-e-Sukhan, the god of poetry. His divans and autobiography Zikr-e-Mir exemplify the Delhi school's emotional, simple diction.

Marsiya

An elegiac poem commemorating the martyrs of Karbala, usually in six-line stanzas. Mir Anis and Mirza Dabeer are its acknowledged masters in the nineteenth century.

Sab Ras

A prose romance by Mulla Wajhi, dated around 1635, often described as the earliest substantial work of Urdu prose. It blends narrative with Sufi allegory in Deccani Urdu.

Aligarh Movement prose

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan's reform movement, with the journal Tahzib-ul-Akhlaq from 1870, redirected Urdu prose toward reasoned essays on education, religion, and social reform.

Aab-e-Hayat

Muhammad Hussain Azad's 1880 history of Urdu poetry, the first major work of its kind. It combined biographical criticism with a new, accessible prose style.

Progressive Writers' Movement

Founded in 1936 in Lucknow with a manifesto drafted by Sajjad Zaheer. Members included Faiz, Manto, Ismat Chughtai, and Ali Sardar Jafri, promoting socially engaged literature.

Manto's Partition stories

Saadat Hasan Manto's short stories, notably Toba Tek Singh and Khol Do, depict the violence and dislocation of 1947 with spare, unsentimental prose.

Mirat-ul-Uroos

Nazir Ahmad's 1869 novel, widely treated as the first Urdu novel. It presents domestic and social reform themes through the contrasting lives of two families.

Grammar-translation method

A deductive approach in which rules are stated and applied through translation exercises. It builds accuracy in qawaid but gives little practice in oral communication.

Inductive grammar teaching

Students examine several examples first and infer the underlying rule. This discovery sequence typically produces stronger retention than presenting the rule before examples.

Urdu lesson plan stages

A common sequence is set induction, presentation, practice, evaluation, and assignment. Each stage names the teacher action and the expected student response.

Teaching poetry sequence

Poetry instruction moves from correct recitation with metre to explanation of meaning, then to critical appreciation. Beginning with annotation reverses the natural appreciation sequence.

Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky's term for the gap between what a learner does alone and what they can do with assistance. Scaffolding targets this zone and is withdrawn as competence grows.

Bloom's revised taxonomy

The ordered levels remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, and create. Assessment verbs should be matched to the intended cognitive level of the objective.

Formative versus summative

Formative assessment is ongoing and used to adjust teaching through feedback. Summative assessment certifies achievement at the end of a unit or course.

Validity and reliability

Validity is whether a test measures the intended construct. Reliability is the consistency of scores across occasions, items, or raters. A test can be reliable but invalid.

Difficulty index

The proportion of candidates answering an item correctly. Values near the middle give the most information; very high or very low values suggest the item is too easy or too hard.

Scope and sequence

Scope is the content covered, such as genres, grammar points, and skills. Sequence is the order and grade placement of that content across the syllabus.

Vertical articulation

Coordination of curriculum content across successive grades so that skills build progressively. It is distinguished from horizontal articulation, which links subjects within one grade.

SMART objective

An objective that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For Urdu, it names an observable student behaviour such as identifying the radif in a ghazal.

Textbook evaluation criteria

Judging a textbook by curriculum alignment, language level, cultural appropriateness, exercise quality, and legibility of Nastaliq text and illustrations.

Skimming and scanning

Skimming is fast reading for general meaning; scanning is searching for a specific detail such as a date or name. Each requires a different classroom task type.

Interactive reading model

A model in which bottom-up decoding and top-down prediction operate together. Proficient readers use letter-level information and schema knowledge simultaneously.

Writing process stages

Pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Teacher feedback is most effective during revision, before surface editing of spelling and punctuation.

Controlled to free speaking

A progression from repetition and substitution drills, through guided dialogue prompts, to free role-play and discussion. Control is reduced as fluency develops.

Universal Design for Learning

A framework offering multiple means of representation, engagement, and expression. Captions, audio versions, and text alternatives let diverse learners access the same Urdu content.

Dyslexia accommodations in Urdu

Adjustments include larger Nastaliq font, wider line spacing, audio versions of texts, reduced copying demands, and extra time. These target decoding and processing load, not content simplification.

Unicode versus InPage

Unicode Urdu text works across modern software, supports search and screen readers, and is preferred for accessibility. InPage is legacy publishing software still used for print layout.