Thursday 22nd July
I had quite a few difficulties on Thursday with the 2nd and 3rd class boys and girls (the boys in particular) - I tried to continue with the school discussions with them but did not get very far. They were all talking, fighting, laying about etc. This was not the first time it had happened and it got me thinking why they were so disinterested. The initial thought was that I was just rubbish at my job - but hopefully that is not the only reason! I think part of the reason must be that what I have been trying to do with them has been too hard, and because they do not understand they get very bored easily - after all some of these children are only 7/8 years old. I have also not used as many visual aids as I did before so I am thinking of maybe using more of these to see if it works! I think for the young ones it is important to set the bar a little lower and just make sure that they enjoy the lessons and have fun while speaking English - maybe more focus on building vocab would be a better plan with them rather than worrying too much about exactly how they structure the sentences - this can be corrected once they know more vocab. At the moment, trying to get them to structure what they say perfectly does not help them as they do not know what the words mean. Only when they understand what the words are will they realise how to structure and be able to remember and apply to other scenarios.
Friday 23rd July
Was not feeling too great on Friday, but it was 4th and 5th class so I did not want to miss their classes - they are so much fun to be around and very easy to teach as they are all so well behaved and really love learning English. It was a good day with all 4 classes (boys in the morning, girls in the afternoon) and I feel that we made some good progress on the school topic - we consolidated everything we had done in the week and most seemed to remember it rather well. Despite not feeling great and my shoulder hurting, we still went out drinking and dancing. When we arrived we had just missed happy hour so the people there had bought the drinks already - there were 12 bottles there for Geoffroy and I - so much for a chilled night over a couple of beers.
Rahul Mishra (4th class)
My room mate Geoffroy
Saturday 24th July
Was feeling the effects of Friday night, as was Geoffroy, so we just chilled at the house for most of the day. Although, I had a very nice afternoon sat in a rather western looking coffee shop with Sam Stamp for 3 hours - felt a bit strange meeting a Uni friend for a coffee in Delhi though! The western coffee shops are a bit weird here - the AC is on so high that it is actually cold inside, there are about 3 staff for every table (slight exaggeration), and there is a guard at the door to let you in and out!
Sunday 25th July
Laziness/tiredness got the better of us again so the word for the weekend was definitely rest! We did venture out in the afternoon for a street food experience, which was very nice, a touch spicy but have not got ill from it so I think it can be seen as a success. We also went for coffee, which I owed Rani and Shamika for losing miserably at a card game that we had a bet on - the coffee was a much nicer experience than the game itself, despite the fact that I was paying!
The evening was supposed to be spent watching Inception (Di Caprio), which I hear is amazing, and is probably the reason why it was sold out, so we had to watch Salt (Jolie) instead - quite funny really, such a ridiculous film.
The cinema was in a large mall, which looked very out of place when we arrived. We were then searched(!) before entering the shopping centre and it felt even stranger when we were inside. If you took the people out of the centre, it could have been anywhere in England - the shops were the same, the layout was the same - mixing with the Indian middle class felt quite unnerving given that I spend most of my time in a small slum village...
Monday 26th July
Not much to say for Monday really, just another day at the centre - had fun playing games with the children (English speaking related of course) - have also been trying to think of new ideas of how to teach the children and make it interactive for all of them. Was thinking of maybe getting them to help me make a huge Snakes and Ladders board and then make the kids draw a question out of a hat and if they get it right they can then roll dice etc - will have to use my very limited creative side!
I think it is really important to realise the limitations of the teaching that I am doing - I think my frustrations recently have stemmed from the fact that I feel I am unable to teach them what I want to teach them. I am starting to realise that what is really important is to just give them the foundation and the confidence to speak and make mistakes and learn from these mistakes. For the remaining weeks I just want to try to help the children have fun while learning.
Tuesday 27th July
Not well - went to the doctors and stayed home all day - some kind of viral thing but nothing serious (within 36 hours felt fine again). I was lucky that the family here have a really good doctor that they trust and he knows what he is doing, which you cannot exactly assume with many doctors in India, especially in poorer areas.
When poor people go to the doctors they expect medicines and injections to make them better, without any knowledge of what is actually wrong with them. If the doctor merely says to rest and to drink plenty of water and rehydration fluids (often what is best for diarrhoea, which is common due to the water situation) the people feel that he is a bad doctor and they go elsewhere. The only way for these doctors to get people coming back to the practice is to prescribe many medicines. This just opens the door for more and more bad quality doctors that are willing to prescribe many low quality medicines when they are not needed. What actually occurs is the medicine given is very ineffective and they just allow the immune system to sort it out, but the people believe it is the medicines that are doing the trick and they continue to visit the 'fake' doctors, many of which do not have the degrees required to practice. It is therefore no surprise that there are so many of these unqualified doctors compared to the good doctors that do not prescribe when medicine is not needed.
The only other thing to say is that I have now gone from Lambu Dada (Tall big brother) to Baccha (baby) because I was unwell. Brilliant.
Wednesday 28th July
Standard day at the centre - more games again with 2nd and 3rd class. Started a new topic today talking about the daily routine. It was hard but plenty of room for improvement this week!
It was quite funny when I arrived at the centre the 4th and 5th classes ran into my class saying that 2nd class should go upstairs, because 4th and 5th missed out on Tuesday because I was ill. I had to explain that we had to go by the rota, which meant 4th and 5th had to wait another day so they got very sulky with me - but I took it as a compliment!
No comments:
Post a Comment