Teaching, living, learning.

This week has been another good week in terms of teaching, living and learning. 

Having a good but firm relationship with your students is what makes a healthy learning environment. I know that sounds incredibly cheesy, but being able to be heard when talking normally is much better than having to shout yourself into strepsil debt!

Our timetables have changed so Jade and I have our own year groups. I teach 2nd, 4th and 6th standard so am able to see the same classes twice a week. On Monday I teach 4A, 4B then 4C in the morning, Tuesday 2A, 2B, 2C and Wednesday 6A, 6B, 6C of which that then repeats itself again up to Saturday! These classes occupy my mornings and the children are aged between 7-14.

I'm thoroughly enjoying having the same classes and they're showing much more respect and appreciation for what we're learning, which is currently emotions. After 'I feel chicken', teaching feelings definitely looked like a good starting point. This week each class has been able to identify actions with the feeling, and say why they are feeling happy - of which many reply 'I feel happy because you are my teacher', 'I feel happy because you are here'. Very flattering, but we still need to crack on with our real reasoning... saying that, the only thing that makes 4C happy is chocolate, cake and chocolate cake.

My Classroom Rules: 

(Imagine it in a sing song way!)

1 No eating

2 No beating

3 No telling

4 Just Smiling!

...And before you're wondering where my imagination has flown to, the classroom rules sound far more exciting when we put actions with them, honestly! They make it so much easier to gain full control of the class, and number four, 'just smiling' is there to remind them that they're allowed to be happy and relax. As our classroom rules have turned into a catchy song, when someone goes against them its as if they're shaming our rhyme, so silence is quickly restored. They're as good as gold a lot of the time and I'm working on making reward charts - quite a task when there's up to 44 students in each class! 

Jade and I also share our Kindgarden and Nursery classes in the afternoon which has a been a mammoth improvement in terms of fun and progress. We are able to spilt the class into two. Jade takes the girls and I take the boys, and visa versa. We are now able to have groups colouring in fruits, drawing and spelling fruit names and making some speedy Hokey Cokey circles. The children seem to enjoy the time we spend with them a lot more now as we're able to give them more attention and create resources for colouring and drawing - plus Jade and I get to spend some teaching time together rather than crashing onto our beds at the end of day, only one fruit name taught and a rather messy, out of control classroom left behind as if a hurricane had just hit! 

We've also been out and about this week. On Monday we went with the schools head English teacher, Callyanni, to her cousins home for dinner. We took with us a few rupees to pay for our dress measurements so our fabrics can magically turn into pieces of wearable clothing! Callyani is like an older sister to us and accompanies us shopping, to the bank and the market as we're still yet to be allowed to roam on our own. To get to her family home we took the school bus to save on the tuk tuk fare (even though it's only 30p!), and got off in a very quite lovely little location. The school bus itself is rather good fun, the kids are sweet and always are overly excitable... they really are full of beans and the bus warden is constantly banging on the side of the bus to scare off the roam cows that stand fearlessly in the buses way. Ongole is so busy so it was a suprise that when we travelled just ten minutes out we were met by silence and fresher air. It was nice to see a clear sky and hear some birds singing on the balcony over the hustle and bustle of the city. The sky, moon and stars remind me of home. A small reminder that we're still in the same world, :-) 

X

First of February!

Last week I wrote in my diary, 'Sunday's remind me of country file, I miss country file' ... (as you do coming from Devon!) But life without a tele is good. We're surrounded by entertainment; fireworks which sound like the hunger games at five in the morning, followed by howling dogs or cows, (we're never sure which one), not to mention the kids.

I've tried to steer away from the 'Miss Honey' teaching approach this week and lay down some 'Miss Trunchball' rules - though I still find myself saying 'Because I'm being nice today, Simon Says one more chance', and my rules seem to consit of simply, 'hands up, sit down, watch and listen'. However I'm not sure if the swarms of nursery will ever settle. Being shut in a class with twenty-thirty four year olds didn't feel like such a prison sentence until I was rather stumped when one of the boys needed the bathroom and to my suprise we couldn't get out... so with a bit of toddler team effort we opened the door from the inside out. Because I also completely understand that running around with a chair on your head is sometimes more exhilarating than learning another fruit in English, Jade and I are teaming up - soon there'll be nothing more exciting than the colours of apples and oranges. It's difficult to hold the attention of so many tots without a word of Telugu. Baa Baa Black Sheep only lasts for so long, and the hockey cockey circle takes at least ten minutes to construct. With the two of us we hope to be able to take them out on the playground and Madam is looking for us to take fourth and fifth standard on a field trip - literally a field trip... to the fields! Which I'm secretly really looking forward too.

So many new things have become such a big part of our temporary everyday lives. Cramming into a tuk tuk and with four in the back - the drivers only mission to dodge people, cows, motorbikes, goats, chickens, bikes, pot holes, you name it. It goes against almost every UK law of wearing a seatbelt, having a speed limit and sticking to your side of the road! Our little adventures always seem to throw up new things to think about... many things to laugh about, and something to smile about. 

:-) Here's a few photos from our past week... X

Teaching teens and toddlers!

Our first weeks teaching really was like being thrown in at the deep end. I heard that phrase over and over again on training, but realising; you're actually in India, you're in a classroom, chalk in one hand, blackboard behind, fourty faces in front of you, it's your turn, you have to speak, all eyes on you...

Daunting is an understatement... though hopefully a word that won't pop up again anytime soon! We're on week two and we're settled, we're in control and we love it. With 3 lessons every morning and 3 every afternoon we're told, 'teach English, speak English' - after all we are English, so we must be good at it, right?! This is the impression we seem to get from almost everyone.

So over the last week it's been reinforced that we can teach whatever we please, play games with the pupils and improve their pronounciation. Having such freedom is good but with such a vast blank slate it's also rather mentally challenging. Good job we bought our imagination to India with us! Trying to get the children to speak out loud about something in context takes some planning, so this week we've gone for animals. 'This is a tiger and this is an elephant, they live in the jungle'. Sentence construction is something we've picked up on that we have to work on with the children. They're good at identifying 'tiger', 'elephant', 'yellow', 'grey', but to string sentences together is proving tricky and a good place for us to start.

Last week was an introductory week in which we choose to teach the children about ourselves, including some differences between England and India. It was a shock to see that some of the excercise books even had the wrong flag labelled for the UK! The tiniest things we're able to point out make us feel that this time spent away is definetly worthwhile. 'Simon says' has also been a popular one. Some kids are rather good at it now, which makes trying to get them out and find a winner before the bell for next lesson a challenge in itself!

After spending twelve and a half hours in the afternoon with nursery kids this past week, running the lessons and repeatedly singing rhymes, they're getting it and they love it. When I feel like my throats burning out, just twinkling my hands is enough to set off 'little star'.

What I've learnt so far...

1 Don't let one nursery child go to the toilet. The rest of the class will follow like sheep and chances are the three year olds dont really need to pee, they just love the slide

2 Remove all chalk slates from the middle of the Hockey Cokey circle. Unless you're trying to run a gym class tumble tots is not the aim

3 Whatever the flow is, just go with it.

So that sums up our first weeks teaching, whilst today in school we celebrated Republic Day. Republic day is 'a day to remember when Indias constitution came into force, completing the country's transition toward becoming an independent Republic.' We least expected to be planting trees, watching a magic show, wishing the whole school a happy morning, wearing our saris for the first time and handing out sweets but everyday chucks something new at us and we're trying our best to catch it with open arms.

Here are a few photos to paint a picture... And as always - all the best from afar, X