On a Misson

I think the Nanubhai mission and my personal mission, just struck me. We are going to start evaluating students’ spoken English skills, both within our spoken English classes and within typical textbook classes. These evaluations will measure the effectiveness of the program through evaluating the improvement in the student’s spoken English abilities from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Having to do these evaluations I have been thinking about my students’ English abilities. I started analyzing my best and worst case scenario students and both types of students make me nervous for success.

The students are making my experience here so worthwhile. I think all of these students will make a lasting impact on my life. They are helpful, appreciating, and mostly hard working. Many students are working extremely hard to succeed and have such a desire to learn. Most of my behavior problems are due to overzealous students that cannot control their excitement to answer a question. Even the students that are silent shy, and quiet, which is most of the girls, still excite me. I see more and more students approaching me and speaking to me in simple English. Even these small steps I feel are vast improvements.

My new sense of mission here is about bridging the gap between the have and have nots. Children here have unlimited opportunities, if you have the money to pay for private schools and tuition classes. Students in the English medium schools have the ability to go to school and understand the material in their classes, since many subjects are taught in English at the college level. Because the classes are taught in English, students that have been going to a Gujarati medium school now have to learn their profession in a language they cannot speak and have difficulty understanding. Many of my students have huge professional goals and to reach this point it is essential that they have skills in English.

The classes are divided into A, B, and C. Each standard is divided this way. The A classes are the most talented students and the other classes are the lower functioning students. The students in the B and C classes are in a trap. They had been put in these classes after having attended government schools. Even if these students improve they are stuck in the lower class, which makes it difficult for them to be challenged.

Spoken English classes is not split up in this way. There are no A,B, and C students, but all students taking the same class with a similar goal in mind, to improve their English skills. There are no tuition payments; there is nothing to limit their ability in understanding and speaking in English.

The students that I have in my class are amazing because they have stuck it out and now are committed to the betterment of their skills. At first kids came just to satisfy their curiosity. Once they realized how difficult the class was they would slowly disappear. Now my students are of many different levels, but they still come and try their best to succeed. None of the students lack in confidence. Whether it is confidence in the one word that they struggle to produce or if it is the confidence to tackle the complicated structure of an entire paragraph.
If my students stay with the spoken English classes they are bound to make dramatic improvements in their spoken English ability. From the small number of students that will improve I think there will be a new benchmark for spoken English ability throughout the school.
Here is my new mission and I am going to fully work for these students. I want to be innovative in my approaches with them so that they will never grow bored of learning. I want to continually give them endless opportunities to gain the confidence and to get a handle on the language.