July 12th

Right, after a few more mild blogs this one may be a little bit more of a rant!

We went about the morning routine as usual, visiting the temple for a cup of tea, when I was shown a test paper that a little 4 year old in the family is due to take later this week. Lets just say it angered me a little! Firstly, one part of the exam was a recital of a short story/passage of English by memory. OK fair enough, some memory work can be useful but I had two issues with this. The first was that literally everything they learn here has to be by memory and if there is one small mistake or if they change the words in any way they will be failed - everything is examined in this way and I do not really see it as an examination in how they think or how they understand - it is learning to just say what you are told to say - doesn't seem like an education to me. My second issue with this was that the passage itself had some horrific grammar errors and the way things were worded was as if we were talking in the 16th century. They are forced to learn by heart incorrect English, and if they correct it they will get zero...something is not quite right there is it?! In addition to this, she is 4 years old and some of the words in the test piece were way beyond what you would expect a 4 year old to be learning - they cannot say things like 'I have 2 brothers' but are learning some ridiculous story with long words that are not used anymore along with poor grammar...

If that was not bad enough, I then was shown the next section of the test paper, which was all about fruits and vegetables. One of the questions for example was 'name 5 fruits' and another was 'name 2 green fruits' - perfectly reasonable questions - however again for each question there were specific answers provided that had to be given - for example the two green fruits had to be watermelon and pear and if you wrote anything else you would fail! Even worse than this, one question asked of your favourite fruit and they had to write mango! When these children will be allowed to use their imagination or think for themselves I do not know...

OK, well that is the rant over! I started my first class like I had done so the others in the week when I was allowed to do what I want. The man that runs the centre then came in to see me and was very nice about everything, apologising for the misunderstanding and what he has done now is asked the English teachers to teach them the books and use my lessons to do the kinds of things I was doing last week. So we continued as we had done before Friday, today focussing on introductions and a bit about the children and their families. I tried to keep it very interactive by choosing two at a time to stand up in the middle of the circle and have a conversation in English while the others listened - the ones that were behaving were the next ones to be called up and soon I had everyone's attention for a change! It was really fun and the children laughed a lot and seemed to really enjoy themselves, which is what I want my classes to be about. So many of them are scared about making mistakes after being used to their school's way of teaching but I think personally they will learn a lot more when they feel comfortable speaking English without fear and they are enjoying themselves. It seemed to work today as they really were progressing even in the short 40 minute lessons.

One of my frustrations has been that once the children really start to settle down and understand what we are doing, they have to go for their next class. So what we have changed now is the structure of the day. Rather than squeezing all classes into one day, we will have hour long sessions for half the students one day and the other half the next day. I think we will really see much greater progress this way, allowing them to practice what they have learnt a lot more in the lesson so that it is less easily forgotten between lessons!

So, today went smoothly, and our prayers have been answered just this minute as the monsoon rain is hitting hard - the weather the last few days has been unbearable. The only slight problem is that a small river seems to be forming outside the office (in the garage) which I am going to have to cross in a minute to go inside for dinner - will let you know how that goes tomorrow!

Hope everyone is well x