Mrs Schramm’s visit to teach and develop spoken English at Udayan Summer 2009
On the morning of 13th August 2009 I sat at Gatwick Airport feeling rather forlorn, tears pricking at my eyes, feeling guilty at leaving my husband and children for 3 weeks to travel over 5,000 miles to Udayan; it would be the first time in my life that I had ventured out of Europe.
However, the following day, after a wonderful journey, a very warm welcome, and an enlightening tour of the well-oiled machine that is Udayan, a hive of purposeful activity from morning till night, I was filled with enthusiasm and couldn’t wait to start teaching!
All the children learn English but it is taught in a very literary style, so they can read and write it well but experience difficulty when speaking it. I had been thoroughly briefed before my departure about the difficulties in grammar, word order and pronunciation experienced by speakers of Bengali and Hindi when learning to speak English so I had prepared appropriate resources and activities, but it hadn’t occurred to me that some of my teaching methods might prove confusing for the students who are used to repeating, reciting and learning by heart!
Nonetheless, initial struggles in all classes were soon overcome as the children became used to techniques such as pair work, question and answer chains, catching a ball while having to respond to a question and conducting simple conversational dialogues. With the older students we graduated to conversations about future aspirations with reasons for their preferences. Soon, outside classes, children started asking me about myself and my family. Each day more of them would pluck up the courage to come for a chat; cricket and food were popular topics, too.
I included singing and rhymes in all the lessons. The little ones loved singing ‘Tommy Thumb’ at the top of their voices with all the actions. Everybody liked singing the days of the week to the tune of ‘Camptown Races’ and with older students we often used to finish off lessons with a hearty rendering of ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm’ including a variety of loud animal noises! Many knew some English songs already so we would often have a singsong as we walked to and from lessons and mealtimes, too.
We played memory games involving past events; the older girls loved doing this, showing skill, imagination and humour. We also worked on giving descriptions using pronouns and adjectives. With younger students I used various stories to achieve this: Eric Carle’s ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ was a great favourite. Older students rose to the challenge of playing guessing games which developed their descriptive vocabulary and made us laugh, too. On my last day at Udayan the class IX boys aged 14-15 invented their own descriptions of all manner of things for me to guess as well as quizzing me thoroughly. I was delighted with their progress.
The primary teachers who work at Udayan are committed to continuing with spoken English as part of their teaching and for the older students who are at high schools off site it is hoped that a teacher will be found to continue the practice of English conversation lessons at Udayan. If the children can learn to speak good English it will improve their chances of getting a job and being able to elevate their families, who are all affected to varying degrees by leprosy and other problems such as TB, out of poverty.
The caring kindness and support I received during my stay was incredible, my family were delighted to see me glowing with health on my return! I was so well looked after and it was a luxury indeed to have delicious meals cooked for me daily! I quickly got used to rising early and starting work after a lovely cup of sweet black tea and two biscuits at 6.45 as well as eating hot spicy food for breakfast after my first hour’s lesson each morning. I also got used to the great heat and the sudden bouts of rainfall; the snakes, frogs, lizards and big, beautiful dragonflies.
I think about the students and staff of Udayan each day and look at their pictures. I miss hearing the chorus of ‘Good morning, Auntie’ when I rise and ‘Good night, Auntie’ when I go to bed. My overriding memories are of smiles and laughter yet the children possess next to nothing in material terms and the staff work long hours for very modest wages. They also cope with frequent power cuts which mean the water has to be pumped by hand and the fans stop working, so in August with temperatures in the thirties and forties centigrade and not much of a drop at night, life becomes quite a trial! However everyone takes these problems in their stride and nothing stops them from functioning as a community.
The support we give to Udayan, both through Mrs Weldon’s tireless fundraising and her awareness raising projects, is incredibly important. James Stevens, the wonderful man who founded the centre forty years ago, has expanded the capacity of Udayan so that more and more children can benefit from the structure and education it provides and our contributions are increasingly valuable as help from other sources recedes.
I do hope the entire Community of St Joan’s will continue to support Udayan with generosity; it truly is a most worthy and inspiring cause which gives children who start life with meagre prospects health, education and a future to which they can look forward with hope.
Mrs Schramm, October 2009
