Sita school visit 8 Nov 08
- Sanjeev Ranganathan

I took the 7:00 a.m. bus from Shivaji Nagar to Silvapura. After breakfast with Jane, Jyothi and a couple of other visitors (one of who was volunteering with them for a few weeks) we headed out to Jane's English class.

There were six children who were preparing for the 7th grade open examinations. I had not observed any classes in action so I sat in. Jane first started by asking children for new words that they had learnt in the chapter - troubled, ashamed, etc. She wrote them on the board and went over each of the words. Using the words she started asking children to recreate the story. This is where I come in - she asked children to give one bit of information about the two individuals Surendranath and Ishwar Chandra. Children gave me different bits of information to fill in the story.

Next she picked up the important conversations and made a little play out of it. The children took turns to enact the main actors, the train, crowd and other smaller roles. This took some time, but Jane was patient. Once this was done, she still got everyone together and went over these dialogues. The children sometimes replaced the tougher words with ones they knew. She encouraged the understanding, but also repeated the words so they were comfortable with them.

She encouraged the children to put in the expression in the words. The children enjoyed this and enacted it well. By the end of it the children were comfortable with the new words, but there were still gaps in the grammar that she corrected patiently.

She then went over the difficult words again and this time asked children to put it in sentences. The children were comfortable with sentences from the text. She then asked them to make sentences of their own.

We took a break and children played with a couple of puzzles I took. In this time we looked over the calendars that are being screen printed there and talked a little about the process and the different experiments they tried this year for the same.

We then came back and Jane worked on writing down the sentences of the play. Here is the play. I wrote it down so my computer can speak it out. Wow! The pronunciation is accurate, but there is no emotion.

Surendranath: Coolie! Coolie!
Ishwar Chandra: What troubles you my lad?
Surendranath: I'm looking for a person to carry my box. I'm the son of a rich merchant, I can't carry the box.
Ishwar Chandra: Don't worry I'll carry the box for you.
Surendranath: All right
* Ishwar Chandra takes the box to Suredranath's house.
Surendranath: Here take some money.
Ishwar Chandra: I don't want it. I'm glad to be of service to you.
* Surendranath's home
Postman: Letter for you.
Surendranath: Today there is a function in the public hall. I will go.
* Public Hall - Ishwar Chandra is the chief guest. Surendranath is ashamed and wants to run away.
Ishwar Chandra: Come Surendranath please come here and sit next to me.
Surendranath: No, no, no.
Ishwar Chandra: Please come.
* After the function.
Surendranath bows :Yesterday you carried my box. Today you are the chief guest of this function. I have learnt a lesson for the rest of my life. I will never be so proud again.
Ishwar Chandra: It's all right. Let's go.

Once everyone had penned in the dialogues they split up in groups of 3 each and tried to do the play within themselves for about 10 mins. By this time the children had gone over 10 odd iterations, first from the book and enacting and now from their own writing.

Next we erased the words of the board and wrote them again based on the children's recollection. Then Jane gave a similar word or a word close to it and asked them to pick and write the words from the board. This was interesting since it took out the issue of trying to remember the spelling before understanding the word and it's context. Most of the children got all the words right. The children were quite patient with one of the child who has slower reactions and is unable to see very well. It is not that the children are tolerant they seem understanding. Apart from this exercise that was independent the children had been making sure that he is not left behind in any activity.

They plan to practice once more and give a background and put up the short play for the younger children. They also got homework to write up a similar play in Kannada.

I also learnt more about the calendars and the efforts involved to make it a reality.