Estella, Miss Havisham and Pip!

Have I mentioned that I have been teaching spoken English in a local school?
Okay- when I accepted the challenge about 2 months back, I was worried: I thought I will have to willy nilly deal with Gerund, articles, Voice etc. Yes, P C Wren* kind of stuff. I lowered my sights and decided to focus on spoken English alone and the culture, music, etc etc.

First time when I played a little western classical music for this group of class 7-8 kids, I got only frowns for my labour! But I did not give up. I suddenly realised that as a child I had really enjoyed being taught “Great Expectations” as a course book in 1971. Actually that book gave me my life long taste for Good literature.
So, I downloaded a BBC version of the movie and began showing it to the class. The kids sit house wise and every 3-4 minutes I would pause the movie and ask them: describe in English what you just saw. End of chapter, end of verse!

Result: Kids have become very fond of pursuing Pip’s adventures and fickleness of Estella and Ms Havisham! Every now and then I tell them a little bit about human psychology, class struggle in Victorian England, notions of “gentle-manliness” in England at that time, convicts being deported to Australia for petty crimes etc. We are getting along very well. Good love stories will never go out of fashion!

Another reasons, why I have been enjoying these sessions:A CWS who used to come to Samagra sometime back, is in one of these classes. I give him every chance to answer my question and earn a point for his house. I just ask him to repeat the whole thing a little slowly for me, every now and then. He has been doing very well.

PS: PC Wren is the author of a very popular grammar book, we studied in seventies. Charles Dickens is the author of Great Expectations.