Childrens Charity, India
By Sarah Angling
Last October I came to visit the OSCAR Foundation and taught English in the Community Learning Centres. This year I came back to spend six weeks in Mumbai, developing an English programme that can be delivered alongside OSCAR’S Football, Life skills and IT curriculum.
First, I focused on some collaborative teaching with my students and colleagues at Malvern College as a cultural exchange on both sides and to motivate the OSCAR children to use their English. So we have read and exchanged introduction letters with the College OSCAR group, PowerPoints on our favourite festivals with an English as an Additional Language class, brochures about our town with a Geography class and work describing our families with an English class. The OSCAR girls and boys are really interested and enthusiastic about reading messages from English students. Huge thanks to my Malvern colleagues for their positive and creative support!
The next stage was to work with some UK gap-year volunteers, as they are a great resource for English practice. As they have just finished school, they have clear memories of language teaching techniques and quick to pick up on using the flashcards, games and other resources. The children really enjoyed learning with them.
Larger groups of Turing students come at intervals in the year, so with them I developed a slightly different approach, with sessions focused on small groups sharing information about themselves and where they live. It was great that a lot of the visitors were keen to come back for a second time to teach!
But my real focus and aim for this time, was to train the teachers who work permanently in the OSCAR Community Learning Centres – without them there can be no ongoing English teaching on a regular basis. I was relieved to find that they were interested, motivated and engaged in learning to use the techniques and resources I had prepared. Within a few weeks they were gaining confidence and working independently with the children. The teachers will deliver English once or twice a week and link it to producing documents and presentations in the IT sessions.
From the window of one of the Learning Centres I could see this mural, reminding me of the saying ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’. I guess the same goes for teaching women to teach…
I will be coming back several times a year to give the teachers further training, as they are keen to learn and develop. By the time I come back in July there should be large whiteboards and projectors in each Learning Centre, paid for by the fundraising efforts of Malvern College pupils.
But the pictures that make me happiest are of the children gaining confidence and skill in writing and speaking English – and having fun along the way!
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