"Teacher, teacher!!"

After three full months of teaching, I have realized several things about teaching ESL in India. Unfortunately, my grand plans of completely immersing my students with conversational English and playing engaging games all the time have fallen by the wayside as I adjust to the expectations of Indian classrooms. Though I try my best to communicate with the students in English, it has become very apparent that this is not always possible, and translation into Gujarati is a frustrating, but necessary, part of every class that I teach. Sometimes I leave class confused if I have achieved anything more than my Indian counterparts and wondering what it is that I am doing here that is so important. Luckily, living at the school so close to my students gives me a chance to interact with them informally on a day to day basisand really restores my faith in what I'm doing here.

Spoken English boys at the Independence Day celebration, proud of their role in the ceremony.

I am daily harassed by my students with questions and descriptions of their days. Though it can be annoying to hear "TEACHER, TEACHER! HOW ARE YOU?!" all the time, it is also great to hear such enthusiasm from my students who are often too shy to speak in front of their peers in the classroom. Walking by students homes often results in short conversations with family members, or even invitations to dinner. Once, while walking to a friend's house, Claire and I were ambushed by several 7th standard students and ushered into a house. I was delighted to see one of my quietest boys in 7B inside the house next to his Ganesh statue, eager to show and explain (as best he could) the importance of this small statue.

Juhi at Krishna Janmashtami. She invited us to see the shrine in her home just after this picture was taken.

These encounters happen more often than I expected, especially when a religious festival is involved. The festival for Krishna's birthday prompted several students to seek us out in the crowd of people at temples. Once they had gotten our attention, these kids eagerly took us to each section of the temple, taught us how to correctly rock the cradle holding baby Krishna, and forced us to eat as much prasad as we could stomach. For the days leading up to Ganapati, we had students on our porch every night at 8 on the dot to ask us to go to the temple. While there, they would introduce us to their friends or family, and often serve as translators for us when the third person spoke no English. It is so great to hear how far they've come in these short months, especially in such an informal setting. I feel so lucky to be so involved in the community that my students are comfortable enough to speak English with me outside of the classroom!

"Teacher! How are you? You come temple?"