Category Archives: English Teaching in India
More about the Students at the Indian Charitable School
I wanted to dedicate this post to discuss the hardships of the students who attend the charitable school where I have been volunteering. If you have been keeping up with the Ek Koshish blog, I have not been teaching there during the month of June, because it is currently their summer vacation; but, starting July 1st, we will be starting classes again, and I will continue my English grammar lectures with the help of a Hindi-speaking English teacher. Everyday at the end of school, I would wait outside for a “rickshaw waala” (what we call the person who drives the “rickshaw,” depicted in the photo above) while the children, who would hang around school after classes finished, would engage in conversation with me. The children explained how they really enjoyed coming to school, since they have a safe place to play with their friends, eat two meals, learn computers, and relish other entertaining subjects. Originally the children were not so interested in learning English, but, after my arrival, many of them felt urged to learn more English so that they could interact with me and learn more about the world outside of their little village in Faridabad, Delhi NCR. The students also explained that, though there is a bus that many students use to go home, not every student can be picked up by the bus: They have to walk about ten kilometers (approximately 6.2 miles) every day to school, in the blistering heat of 50˚C (122˚F), each way. It was a rude awakening to hear about their rough lives every day, considering that they enjoy walking to school, because home must be that much worse. In many cases, the children’s parents cannot afford to feed the children at all, and so the children go each day to eat two meals per day at the school, apart from Sundays, when the school is not open. It is my dream that these brave Indian students can be successful and can communicate fluently in English: Until then, my work here won’t be done!
Leprosy Relief and All-Girl’s Indian Orphanage
This week, I went with the chairperson of Ek Koshish to learn about the leprosy colony in Faridabad, before we visited an all-girls’ orphanage in Sector 15 of Faridabad, by the name of “Arya Kanya Sadan” (Hindi for “Communal home for girls [founded by the Aryas]”). At the leprosy colony, they explained to me how their charity initiated: In 1990, the government donated land in Faridabad to the people (and to family members of people) afflicted with leprosy. Foreigners and other rich benefactors, who supported the cause here in India, built the structures on the government-donated land. One of the structures, the hand loom shop, was donated by the German Relief Fund for Leprosy, along with dozens of machines used to make different types of fabric. The person running the shop explained that his parents were leprosy patients too, but they had passed away. Most of the workers are patients suffering from leprosy, but some of them have a relative who suffers from the disease. Nowadays, thanks to several health camps and intervention from the government, the number of families affected by the disease has dwindled only to 105 families. Afterwards, we visited a cow shed, operated by the people living in the leprosy colony, who sell the milk they produce from the cow shed to earn for the residents and for the organization as a whole. Heading out of the cow shed area, we found some of the leaders in the community, whom we asked if I could begin teaching some classes to the children after school. They were happy to accept my services, and we may be organizing the classes in the near future! Otherwise, they also suggested that we visit the orphanage in Sector 15 of Faridabad, “Arya Kanya Sadan.” There, the warden was happy to see my interest in teaching her students, of which there are ninety one, and I would focus my coursework on English grammar and conversational English classes. Now we are in the process of seeking permission to organize my classes in the orphanage as well. It may be difficult for me to get permission to teach at the orphanage, because it is an all-girls’ orphanage. Even if I am unable to get the opportunity to teach at Arya Kanya Sadan, I am looking forward to all of the work and different ways through which I can reach out to this community and help the truly neediest of people!
Teaching English Grammar to Indian Students
Just a few days ago it was my last day at the school for impoverished and needy children in Faridabad, until the end of the summer vacation, which is fairly short in India: By July 1st, I will be back at the school in my normal schedule. Over the break, I have been working on my lesson plans, now that I have a feel for the students’ capabilities in each grade level. Eighth grade is quite good at picking up grammar concepts in English, especially learning new tenses, so I will continue working on more helping verb constructions with them and finish up tenses for now in their classes. Afterwards, we will move onto clauses, but we will start with some basic subordinate clauses and work our way from there, as I see fit. The seventh grade class is not as quick on picking up tenses or working on prepositional phrases, so I will continue to review all of the tenses with those classes, as well as more practice with prepositional phrases. Hopefully before I leave India in October, we can start to introduce some more topics in grammar, but I think for now that subordinate clauses may be a bit too difficult for them, as they have a hard time being able to differentiate the subject of a sentence, the verb of a sentence, and other objects in a sentence. The sixth grade class is a very clever group of children, and we may even get to more advanced material before the seventh grade class, but I will play it by ear for now. We will continue working on new tenses and recognizing parts of speech. In the fifth grade class, they still have trouble recognizing nouns, adjectives, and verbs, so I will make some worksheets for them, which in which they will circle nouns, underline adjectives, etc. This should help them for more difficult topics to come in the future, like prepositional phrases and adverbs. Finally, the fourth grade class is very weak in English, as many of the students have been held back for many years, or have not had access for many years until now. As such, I will continue working on adjectives and nouns, as these two topics are somewhat strong for them in Hindi, but they cannot grasp a correlation with Hindi grammar and English grammar, which is quite evident in terms of adjectives and nouns. Otherwise, I have another picture from when the doctors were giving checkups to the students. The last day at school was especially touching, as the children literally touched my feet, a sign of high respect to elders in Indian society. It was a moment I’ll never forget, being a part of a wonderful tradition for my efforts working with these eager to learn students. I have high aspirations for these determined children, and hope that with my work here in India, they can be inspired to make names for themselves in society, whether in India or even abroad. Let’s see how my English classes on July 1st go!
Sharing US Currency with Indian Students
The other day at the charitable school, I was answering many questions the children had about my home in the US, to which they all paid close attention, listening in amazement. Several of the children were very interested in US currency, and they asked me “What is money like over there? Can you bring some American money for us to see?” Thankfully, I held onto a bunch of my singles and some change I had at the airport, and I brought in one of each coin, along with a single, a five, ten, and twenty dollar bill for them to observe. At the end of class today, the children made sure I didn’t forget to show them the currency, as they asked, “You did bring the money, right?” I pulled out the money from my pockets, from which they all derived great pleasure! They each were touching the dollars, asking who was on each different coin and bill, which buildings were depicted on each bill, how many rupees each coin or bill was worth, and much more. After they all relished this special moment they never had envisioned would occur, one of the students took out some Indian Rupees and was showing me what Indian currency looks like! The other students were explaining to him that I probably already know what Indian money here looks like; but even still, he kept showing me more coins and different bills! It was very sweet that he wanted to share with me the same excitement he experienced from looking at foreign money! In a few days, it will be the last day of the school before summer holidays, until July 1st, so I am looking forward to this last exciting week of classes until then!