English, Not Latin

Me

(Absorbedly narrating and explaining the story of Lal Bahadur Shastri’s childhood to my ten-year-old student) …and little Shastri was only two months old when his mother lost him in a crowd during the mela.

Ten-Year-Old

(Nodding, apparently listening to the tale intently)

Me

So, how old was Shastri at the time?

Ten-Year-Old

(Continues nodding, eyes unblinking)

Me

How old was Shastri?

Ten-Year-Old (still nodding)

Me

No. That was a question.

Ten-Year-Old

Oh, a question? (Thinking. Looks up at the ceiling) Two years old? (Smiles sheepishly)

*

I knew when I started teaching children a couple of weeks back that it was going to be a challenge. And this instance I mentioned above was funnier if you were to be present at the moment when it happened. I wondered if it was really English I taught them or whether what I spoke to them sounded like Latin.

I teach students from standard five to nine and I handle minds from childish to maturing. Despite our colonial rule by the British for over a hundred and fifty years, communicating in English has been a problem. I am not really sure if that is a good thing or a bad one but I think as much as knowing our own culture and language, it becomes essential that we know some of the other languages, especially English, as it is, today, used as a standardized language at all institutions. As I see students grappling with words and meanings, I am compelled to do something to make them familiarized with the texts in their syllabus, their relevance and its use outside of their curriculum.

When teaching and learning become a difficult task

Schooling in Mumbai has changed rapidly over the last few years. I remember a decade ago when I was in school, we had fewer, thinner text books and were given enough writing assignments as homework apart from  encouraging interested students to take part in various written and spoken competitions. I was quite astonished to learn that students are instructed not to write more than a page for essays in their exams. It makes me wonder if teachers want students to be precise about their expressions or they do not want to read too much. Whatever the case, when students battle with the language and fail to even express their thoughts, I think that is the signal for teachers to be proactive and make the students involved in the process of teaching and learning.

Challenging the task may be, but the thought of guiding young minds and constructing efficient citizens out of them makes my job more meaningful. And although I realise that students may not entirely like the additional assignments I enforce them to work with, I know it will bear its fruits once they are out of school. And though other teachers and parents might wonder how my assignments help them score in their exams, I look at a bigger picture.

So when my ten year old student sheepishly smiles at me and answers my questions wrong, I simply grin at him and ask him to read his text aloud and narrate to me the story in his words. And when he does that, he looks at me with a look of epiphany and replies, “Oh, it is two months!” I heave a sigh of relief thanking God that I teach them English, not Latin.