Teaching Program Remote Endeavours

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Kolayad, Kerala

Palayathu Vayal Government Upper Primary School, Kolayad, Kerala

5th December 2016 – 14th December 2016

Since I was already introduced to the students and the teaching staff on my previous visit, I right away started with the teaching activities. To begin with, I started teaching the 5th standard students.

Intro

My introductory sentences were “Ente peru Avinash aanu. Enikku Malayalam ariyilla. Njan ivide ningalku English Padipikyan vannu.” (My name is Avinash and I don’t know Malayalam. I’m here to teach you English). This was received by smiling faces with the students unanimously saying that they would teach me Malayalam.

I first analyzed their current level of understanding and usage of English language to plot my course structure accordingly. They knew the alphabets and also understood some simple words, same as the remaining classes which I later taught. I taught them the usage of Nouns and Pronouns and then went on to help them understand interrogative words. The students were very enthusiastic and were eager to learn something new. With the help of the students, I translated and wrote the Malayalam alternatives for the English words and sentences which helped them understand the words and their usage simultaneously.

Proud Moment

I then taught them tenses extensively. I gave them simple sentences and asked them to identify the nouns and pronouns in them. They were also made to identify the tense and make similar sentences for other tenses. Every word used in the sentences was explained to them along with the opposites of some of those words. This was later followed by the administration of practice exercises to the students which were prepared and sent by Ananye Krishna on a short notice. These exercises involved filling in the blanks with appropriate tenses, prepositions, pronouns and interrogative words. Later, we started constructing some basic sentences after which they were asked to write short paragraphs on topics like school, family, country etc. Most of the students were able to form the appropriate sentences though there were few grammatical errors.

A Journey

Though I started with teaching the 5th standard students, I ended up teaching the 4th, 6th and 7th standard students as well. The school administration was very supportive and accommodative which helped me utilize the maximum amount of available time. We are now planning to capitalize on this experience for our ongoing and future endeavours. We are also preparing some practice exercises which will be sent to the school administration so that the students are consistently engaged in improving whatever they have learnt already.