Steve Rushton from UK
Ballo Ascho/ Ayy-hoo / Hi
Bishnu’s son Bibo and his driver, Peujuce, gave me a warm welcome in the evening at Kolkata
airport and took me across town to Bishnu’s apartment, where I meet him and his wife, had a
takeaway curry and a few drinks.
The next day we leisurely made our way through the throng of traffic to Howrah and onwards on the
train Bolpur. On route I was treated to my first experience of Baul musicians, traditional nomadic
Bengali folk musician, Bishnu used his prowess to make a great video on my camera. We caught a
cab from the station onto the apartment and the first of one of Shompa’s cuup- bhallow (very good)
meals before my first visit to the school.
Bishnu and I caught a cab out from Santineketan into ever more beautiful countryside. The school
is situated on a plane of rice paddies, on first arrival there was a thatched hut with an open area.
During the rest of my stay the second building, two brick built rooms had been swiftly constructed.
After meeting the students as a big group, I went the short distance to the football pitch for a
massive game. The kids all with bare feet played a skilful fast game on a dry pitch. They showed
straight away their positive energy, their humour and the friendly competitive nature.
That night I was excited about meeting the students again and my first experience of teaching EAL.
With lots of ideas I chatted to Bishnu that night about the ethos of teaching at the school. His
message was very empowering, he said to approach it how I wanted to and all he wants is the kids
to enjoy school. With this in mind I decided that my goal would be to refresh the students memory-
they had not had lessons for over 3 months due to the monsoon break, to concentrate on their
conversational English, improve their emotional literacy, and of-course try and make the lessons as
fun as possible. Bishnu also gave me the folder that contained all the previous volunteers’ lesson
plans which proved invaluable.
Red group (3 -7 year olds)
The red group is the first group of students 7 years and younger, like all the groups a different
number turn up every day. Once when they were playing Duck, Duck Goose I realised there was
over 70 students there, although there is normally about 45. Due to their age this group really excel
with a focus on kinaesthetic learning. So I have taught them with lots of actions with words, songs,
choral chants and games.
Some of the most enjoyable activities I have taught this group include Heads Shoulders Knees with
a twist, for instance adding freeze at the end and pausing to the students’ collective pleasure. The
students have responded to a word-action activity in which I have introduced more words as their
vocabulary has expanded. I have taught them a range of songs, some children’s and a few pop-
songs including All You Need is Love by the Beatles, sometimes after class when they are playing
them will sing these to me. An action chant I came up with to the tune of Flea, Flea Fly (RHCP, Out
in LA) has also been learnt well, it goes Hand, Hand-wave, hand wave clap, wave clap click, point
hide, thumbs-up, thumbs up good, fingers, wiggle- wiggly- wiggly- fingers.
At first due to the young age of some of these students I found they had a low attention span,
however after a week of teaching they were engaged to the extent that at the end of one lesson I
had told them class is finished, they sat there and requested more songs and activities. I also found
it quite amusing that one day a baby was asleep in her sister’s arms, I pointed this out to the whole
group and we did all the activities for the rest of the lesson in a whisper.
Yellow group/ Blue group (7-10/ 10-15 year olds)
With the Yellow and Blue groups I have discovered that blending the action games, songs with
more in depth learning has enabled me to best use my time with them. Although the numbers are
different every day, the higher ability and far smaller size of these classes allows explanation,
individual speaking and listening, reading and writing, These groups love a competition and the last
activities of the lesson is often a closely thought battle of their English abilities.
I have pushed my meagre acting abilities to the limits with this class to work on their emotional
literacy, diving behind the whiteboard and poking my head out nervously they recognise as scared,
bouncing about with a beaming smile they recognise as excited, pretending to drift off leaning
against one of the school huts’ posts as tired, and so on. The students’ retention of this vocabulary
was shown when some of the students told me how another student was angry, I spoke to him and
he had fallen out with another student on the football pitch, I chatted to them both and the issue
was resolved. This group has shown particular progress in competitions, such as a letter allocation
game when they have to stand up when a word is said starting with their letter, playing snakes and
ladders to work on the numerical recognition out of sequence, or two teams that have to pick out
words from a written piece on the board.
Highlights of teaching the Sental
These are innumerable, from the high fives and welcomes you get cycling in to the really positive
vibe around the school, their willingness to try new things, their big claps after each activity and
their energy in lessons or playing afterwards especially some great games of football and cricket.
The lessons are filled with laughter, not least at my attempts to draw, act, sing and try and learn
heads, shoulders, knees and toes in Bengali and Sental. I remind myself to savour as many
moments as I can, from this unique experience.
As with most schools in England sometimes the kids miss lessons, in contrast this is because they
are out working the fields, bringing in the crop or tending to livestock, sometimes on the way home I
will chat to a student who has a stick in his hand and is driving a small herd of sheep or buffalo
back to the village. During my time I have also learnt a small amount of Sental, here are the few -all
phonetic. Durrupey- sit down, paagei/ modge- good, Tiguar- thank-you/ no worries, anjohnme-
listen.
Local Bengali school
At the end of my second week a teacher from a local community, of mainly manual workers,
requested that I teach their kids English in the mornings. This entailed a lesson to students of
differing ages, from 4 up to 12, with no equipment I have taught this group a lot of the same songs
and action based activities as the Sental school.
Santinekatan and around
Here are a few highlights from my time in Santiniketan...
- Turning up early and visiting the Sentals’ village, the students gave me a tour
- Cycling through the beautiful countryside and villages on the way to the school, there is a sharp
contrast with the modern besides the old a farmer mobile flasher than mine in hand, using a set of
scales like the ones from the village in Monty Python’s Holy Grail.
- All the people I meet, from the villages I pass through where the people say hello and I say ballo
ascho to the limited chats I’ve had in Bengali, and the people that want to speak to you and practice
their English, sometimes as your cycling about
- The wildlife, especially the free range animals on the roads, being a tails length away from a
monkey and the deer in the local sanctuary
- Santiniketan is really easy to explore on bikes, past the lakes, markets, into the forests
- The Saturday Baul market in a leafy glade, there is a band that I listen to on the edge each week,
an orange sun setting across the padi fields in the background. This is also a good source of
souvenirs and presents, I bought an Ektara here which I have used to have a jam with some Bauls
- Santinekatan University, the grounds summed up by the town’s translation: peace town, famous
for its founders there’s also a great local gallery that shows the influences of Tagore in different
media and interpretations, it only costs 3 ruppees as well
- In contrast to all this serenity, it’s quite a buzz to hurtle down the main road ringing the bell on the
bike for survival into Bolpur. Here I was proud to be told when I was getting a new football for the
Sental that I was over haggling.
- My final highlight was successfully booking a train ticket. Ambitiously I tried to book four train
tickets in one go, this was not fruitful there’s a detailed form to fill in for each one, so it was with a
great sense of achievement to go back the next day with pre filled in form and get the four tickets.
However, the man was enthusiastic that I should rewrite one of them out again because it had a
mistake on it, much to my relief, after writing the amended info onto the form giving a smile and a
saying teak-ache? (no worries) I was saved me from the likelihood of having to refill the boxes and
another 40 minute queue.
Ballo Ascho/ Ayy-hoo / Hi
Bishnu’s son Bibo and his driver, Peujuce, gave me a warm welcome in the evening at Kolkata
airport and took me across town to Bishnu’s apartment, where I meet him and his wife, had a
takeaway curry and a few drinks.
The next day we leisurely made our way through the throng of traffic to Howrah and onwards on the
train Bolpur. On route I was treated to my first experience of Baul musicians, traditional nomadic
Bengali folk musician, Bishnu used his prowess to make a great video on my camera. We caught a
cab from the station onto the apartment and the first of one of Shompa’s cuup- bhallow (very good)
meals before my first visit to the school.
Bishnu and I caught a cab out from Santineketan into ever more beautiful countryside. The school
is situated on a plane of rice paddies, on first arrival there was a thatched hut with an open area.
During the rest of my stay the second building, two brick built rooms had been swiftly constructed.
After meeting the students as a big group, I went the short distance to the football pitch for a
massive game. The kids all with bare feet played a skilful fast game on a dry pitch. They showed
straight away their positive energy, their humour and the friendly competitive nature.
That night I was excited about meeting the students again and my first experience of teaching EAL.
With lots of ideas I chatted to Bishnu that night about the ethos of teaching at the school. His
message was very empowering, he said to approach it how I wanted to and all he wants is the kids
to enjoy school. With this in mind I decided that my goal would be to refresh the students memory-
they had not had lessons for over 3 months due to the monsoon break, to concentrate on their
conversational English, improve their emotional literacy, and of-course try and make the lessons as
fun as possible. Bishnu also gave me the folder that contained all the previous volunteers’ lesson
plans which proved invaluable.
Red group (3 -7 year olds)
The red group is the first group of students 7 years and younger, like all the groups a different
number turn up every day. Once when they were playing Duck, Duck Goose I realised there was
over 70 students there, although there is normally about 45. Due to their age this group really excel
with a focus on kinaesthetic learning. So I have taught them with lots of actions with words, songs,
choral chants and games.
Some of the most enjoyable activities I have taught this group include Heads Shoulders Knees with
a twist, for instance adding freeze at the end and pausing to the students’ collective pleasure. The
students have responded to a word-action activity in which I have introduced more words as their
vocabulary has expanded. I have taught them a range of songs, some children’s and a few pop-
songs including All You Need is Love by the Beatles, sometimes after class when they are playing
them will sing these to me. An action chant I came up with to the tune of Flea, Flea Fly (RHCP, Out
in LA) has also been learnt well, it goes Hand, Hand-wave, hand wave clap, wave clap click, point
hide, thumbs-up, thumbs up good, fingers, wiggle- wiggly- wiggly- fingers.
At first due to the young age of some of these students I found they had a low attention span,
however after a week of teaching they were engaged to the extent that at the end of one lesson I
had told them class is finished, they sat there and requested more songs and activities. I also found
it quite amusing that one day a baby was asleep in her sister’s arms, I pointed this out to the whole
group and we did all the activities for the rest of the lesson in a whisper.
Yellow group/ Blue group (7-10/ 10-15 year olds)
With the Yellow and Blue groups I have discovered that blending the action games, songs with
more in depth learning has enabled me to best use my time with them. Although the numbers are
different every day, the higher ability and far smaller size of these classes allows explanation,
individual speaking and listening, reading and writing, These groups love a competition and the last
activities of the lesson is often a closely thought battle of their English abilities.
I have pushed my meagre acting abilities to the limits with this class to work on their emotional
literacy, diving behind the whiteboard and poking my head out nervously they recognise as scared,
bouncing about with a beaming smile they recognise as excited, pretending to drift off leaning
against one of the school huts’ posts as tired, and so on. The students’ retention of this vocabulary
was shown when some of the students told me how another student was angry, I spoke to him and
he had fallen out with another student on the football pitch, I chatted to them both and the issue
was resolved. This group has shown particular progress in competitions, such as a letter allocation
game when they have to stand up when a word is said starting with their letter, playing snakes and
ladders to work on the numerical recognition out of sequence, or two teams that have to pick out
words from a written piece on the board.
Highlights of teaching the Sental
These are innumerable, from the high fives and welcomes you get cycling in to the really positive
vibe around the school, their willingness to try new things, their big claps after each activity and
their energy in lessons or playing afterwards especially some great games of football and cricket.
The lessons are filled with laughter, not least at my attempts to draw, act, sing and try and learn
heads, shoulders, knees and toes in Bengali and Sental. I remind myself to savour as many
moments as I can, from this unique experience.
As with most schools in England sometimes the kids miss lessons, in contrast this is because they
are out working the fields, bringing in the crop or tending to livestock, sometimes on the way home I
will chat to a student who has a stick in his hand and is driving a small herd of sheep or buffalo
back to the village. During my time I have also learnt a small amount of Sental, here are the few -all
phonetic. Durrupey- sit down, paagei/ modge- good, Tiguar- thank-you/ no worries, anjohnme-
listen.
Local Bengali school
At the end of my second week a teacher from a local community, of mainly manual workers,
requested that I teach their kids English in the mornings. This entailed a lesson to students of
differing ages, from 4 up to 12, with no equipment I have taught this group a lot of the same songs
and action based activities as the Sental school.
Santinekatan and around
Here are a few highlights from my time in Santiniketan...
- Turning up early and visiting the Sentals’ village, the students gave me a tour
- Cycling through the beautiful countryside and villages on the way to the school, there is a sharp
contrast with the modern besides the old a farmer mobile flasher than mine in hand, using a set of
scales like the ones from the village in Monty Python’s Holy Grail.
- All the people I meet, from the villages I pass through where the people say hello and I say ballo
ascho to the limited chats I’ve had in Bengali, and the people that want to speak to you and practice
their English, sometimes as your cycling about
- The wildlife, especially the free range animals on the roads, being a tails length away from a
monkey and the deer in the local sanctuary
- Santiniketan is really easy to explore on bikes, past the lakes, markets, into the forests
- The Saturday Baul market in a leafy glade, there is a band that I listen to on the edge each week,
an orange sun setting across the padi fields in the background. This is also a good source of
souvenirs and presents, I bought an Ektara here which I have used to have a jam with some Bauls
- Santinekatan University, the grounds summed up by the town’s translation: peace town, famous
for its founders there’s also a great local gallery that shows the influences of Tagore in different
media and interpretations, it only costs 3 ruppees as well
- In contrast to all this serenity, it’s quite a buzz to hurtle down the main road ringing the bell on the
bike for survival into Bolpur. Here I was proud to be told when I was getting a new football for the
Sental that I was over haggling.
- My final highlight was successfully booking a train ticket. Ambitiously I tried to book four train
tickets in one go, this was not fruitful there’s a detailed form to fill in for each one, so it was with a
great sense of achievement to go back the next day with pre filled in form and get the four tickets.
However, the man was enthusiastic that I should rewrite one of them out again because it had a
mistake on it, much to my relief, after writing the amended info onto the form giving a smile and a
saying teak-ache? (no worries) I was saved me from the likelihood of having to refill the boxes and
another 40 minute queue.
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