A less eventful day today, but I really enjoyed it as I managed to have my first classes completely alone without another teacher sitting in. As I mentioned on the previous blog, the children here are used to just reading, reciting and copying down word for word everything that the teacher says, so what I did today was a purely spoken class - no writing involved at all - in an attempt to achieve some sort of understanding on their part.
The topic for today was body parts, as it is one of the main areas in their syllabus and there were some good flash cards in the store cupboard, which had pictures on the front and the name of the part on the back. I started off with just the names of the parts, then asked them how many they had of each,and finally what they are used for (stuck purely to limbs, head and torso...)
What was interesting to see was that there was not such a noticeable gap between class 2 and class 5 especially for the girls - I just wonder whether if they managed to have access to the project at a younger age, they would have developed a bit more than they have done. Hopefully the project will have the effect that I am confident it can have and the current class 2 girls will learn a lot more by the time they are in class 5 - you can tell some of them are so bright - it is just a shame that the government schooling is not of a higher quality than it is. While the project continues, there is at least hope for these children.
The children were quite quiet to begin with (understandably so, being faced with some random big white guy that cannot speak any hindi) but they soon became much more vocal, and in the case of some of the girls a little too vocal and very giggly! When I asked what hands were used for I did make the mistake of saying clapping along with the motion, which was promptly followed by the girls clapping so loudly that the main teacher stuck his head round the door. Any time I mentioned hands after that they decided I wanted them to clap. Also,when I asked them how old they thought I was it had gone up from 30 yesterday to 36, and one girl even said 50 and kept calling me uncle as she thought I was so old...cheers.
Unfortunately that is all for today! Best go write some lesson plans for the rest of the week - thank you everyone who is reading this blog - awareness is the first hurdle then maybe action on these issues will be taken.
P.S. Please watch the latest video about Kakenya -the issues I have encountered are not just occurring in India - they are an unfortunate reality that happens in so many poor nations - http://www.globalpovertyproject.com/blog/
(Mum - I hope you had a nice last day at work and you didn't get too drunk! I will try to sort out a sim card very soon - apparently international calls are quite cheap so I will aim to call you in the very near future - love to everyone x)
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