Building Language Skills in a Creative Way: Reflections on Teaching at SKV Rajokri

Building Language Skills in a Creative Way: Reflections on Teaching at SKV Rajokri

As part of the Mission Buniyaad training session, a practice session was organized at SKV Rajokri, where I went to teach a class following the format provided by the expert team. The format included opening, vocabulary practice, working with text, speaking, and closing, with detailed guidelines to help teachers execute these strategies in the class.

For the opening activity, I showed a chalk in my hand to the students and asked them what it is. Everybody replied that it was chalk. I then asked one of them to come and write it on the board, and one student came and wrote it. Next, I showed my mobile phone to them and asked "what is this?" to which everybody responded that it was a mobile phone. I then asked who wanted to write it on the board, and many of them raised their hands, with one of them coming ahead and writing it on the board.

I attempted to open the book provided to us, but due to limited availability of the internet, it was not possible. Therefore, I wrote a four-line story on the blackboard about a monkey named Chinku who fell into a river after jumping from a tree. We practiced modeling, eco-reading, silent reading, and reading aloud with this text.

For the speaking activity, I played Antakshari where one student had to speak a word and the next student would speak a word starting from the last letter of the previous word. I allowed students to help their friends if they were not able to find the word by demonstrating it through gestures.

At the closing activity, I asked the students to introduce themselves using an adjective from the first letter of their name. This proved to be challenging for them, and I helped a couple of students with their adjectives, which then became their homework. The children were excited, and it was the last period of the day.

On the second day, some children had already thought of an adjective starting from the first letter of their name, such as "monitor" for Manali and "nice" for Neha. Naznin and Neha had a little fight to claim "nice" before her name. However, it was a bit difficult to identify adjectives from the letter "K," with "kind," "knowledgeable," and "killer" being suggested, with no one willing to use the last one…One reason could be that they were just in grade 6!

Each child introduced themselves with their name and adjective, and the next task was to write down their name with the adjective they had identified with their name. Some students wrote it in Hindi, and I helped a few students and also asked students to take help from their friends. Gauri wrote “जिनिअस” Gauri. However, she asked me the spelling.

The next task was to complete a story that I had repeated from the previous day on the board about a monkey named Chinku who fell into a river. I added a sentence, "He met a fish." Students in the class were sitting in four rows, and I nominated a monitor from each row and asked them to take a sentence from each student in their respective rows and complete the story. The children were excited, and some of them asked if they could tell the story in Hindi, to which I allowed them to try in English, but if it was not possible, they could tell it in Hindi. Three to four students contributed in each row, but unfortunately, the bell rang, and the period ended.

I concluded the session by reminding the children that everything we know, such as speaking, walking, and writing, was learned at some point in our lives, and if they did not know how to read, write, or speak in English, they could learn it, just as they had learned everything else they know today.