I had visited the schools sometime in the beginning of this year and was impressed to see the students and teachers . The cleanliness, discipline was meticulous and the enthusiasm running high.
When I interacted with the teachers and the students I could see the need for a bit of an impetus to make /encourage the students to speak more in English in order to prepare them for the outer world of higher studies and jobs. I also realized from my earlier experience of working in rural schools that
It’s difficult for teachers to do extra work with students in the form of lesson planning and thinking of innovative and new methods of teaching.
Therefore, I have designed a course and Teacher’s manual for the teachers to use to teach English communication skills with the students. It contains a program that can be used for one full academic year along with links from the internet to be used as teaching aids. It has different activities to be
followed by teachers along with each topics and also examples of questions that teachers can ask students to inculcate higher order thinking skills and for practising English communication. The course also takes into account certain sensitive issues like gender equality, respecting one’s heritage
and traditions and complete guidelines are provided for teachers to inculcate them among students.
When I met Varpe Sir, the principal after a week of sending him the course and manual he sounded very enthusiastic about it. In fact, he said to me that he had started a few activities with the children and they seemed quite excited about doing them. Furthermore, Varpe sir has also picked up cues
from the course and is using them for projects with the children.. I am hoping that this program will enhance the learning experience for both students and teachers.
The full course will be started from the next academic year but Varpe Sir is already implementing certain activities and lessons so that the outgoing students of class ten can gain something before
they leave school and enter the world of other opportunities. The videos attached will show you the lessons / acitivites in progress in the two schools.