| learningnet-india.org The complete educational resource |
 |
| Home | |
| What's New | |
| Profiles | |
| Activities | |
| Announcements | |
| Publications | |
| Articles | |
| Resources | |
|
|
|
Isai Ambalam School — Glenn Doman Reading Method — Rishi Valley Study Cards Method based on Self-Learning — Audio Tape with Language Games Method to Learn English Easily — Phonic Sounds Method to Read English on One’s Own — Education By Design Method Based on Solving Challenges — Basic Sentence Structure Method to Construct One’s Own English Sentences — Spiritual Method to Do One’s School Work Well — How Training in the Use of Each of These Methods was Given — How a Comprehensive Training in the Use of All These Methods was Given — The Common and The Most Important Basis of All These Efforts
1. Isai Ambalam School in 1996
In 1996 Isai Ambalam School had 30 preschool children and 30 Young Adults (dropouts). Thematic Project Works method was in use in the school. There were 4 groups of students, and each group had two teachers. They took one theme for the entire month. Based on that theme, they planned learning activities for the students through which they learnt language, math and general knowledge. At the end of each month the students staged a cultural performance based on their learning.
2. How Glenn Doman Method Came Into Use
Subash introduced Glenn Doman method. He was convinced that 3 to 4 years old children could learn to read in several languages using this method, that rural children could use this method and learn in a short time to read in Tamil and English, and that this would make their future learning of equal quality to that of urban students. In Arasavanangkadu village in Thiruvaroor district of Tamil Nadu, Raghavan and Aruna Raghavan, a young Tamil couple, were using this method very successfully for their village children. Three teachers of Isai Ambalam School went there, got training for 5 days in the use of this method and came back. In August 1996 they started implementing this method.
3. How Rishi Valley Study Cards Method Came Into Use
Young Adults differed considerably in their learning levels, and so it was difficult to decide what to teach them and how to teach what was decided upon. Further, even though it was decided that they should acquire Tamil language skills and basic math skills at the earliest, it was not possible to implement the decision fully. When some of the teaching staff went to Rishi Valley and observed the Study Cards system used there, it was felt that it would be most appropriate for these Young Adults. In that system, all the subject content from the 1st to 4th standard levels and the learning activities to learn it were each given in separate study cards. All these study cards were stacked in a certain sequence. The students themselves were taking out each of those cards, also performing the learning activities in it by themselves and learning well the subject content. It was decided to adopt that system in Isai Ambalam School.
As a first step, sample study cards for learning all the Tamil alphabets by the Young Adults were prepared by the teachers. The Young Adults, who were not able to learn all the Tamil alphabets for more than four months, learnt to read as well as write within one month by using those cards.
The entire school staff sat down and discussed this matter, and in one month prepared the study cards for learning Tamil for the first and second standard levels. Then they spent one more month for preparing the study cards for the same for the third and fourth standard levels. They got training from Balaraman, a retired primary school headmaster, to design exercises for the lessons. Then they prepared exercises for all the lessons.
When this task was over there was not a single Young Adult who needed to use those cards! But an opportunity to enroll 15 new preschool children from Annai Nagar of Alankuppam came. The parents of those children gave the assurance that they would continue to send those children till their primary level studies were completed in the school. Hence it was decided to start a primary section in the school. The work for preparing study cards for Mathematics and Environmental Science for the 1st and 2nd standard levels was taken up and completed within a month. Primary section was started in 1999.
4. How Audio Tape with Language Games Method Came Into Use
Audio Tape with Language Games method was used for the Young Adults to enable them to learn English. Small stories that would be interesting to the students were written in English and Tamil using simple sentences. Their audio versions were tape-recorded. Students listened to this recording whenever they needed to hear the story. They learnt the intended language skills from these stories by playing language games in groups. The teachers designed these games. After the teachers started using this method all of them found that the students from rural areas were rid of their fear in learning English and they started feeling joy in learning it. As a result, in one year, some 12 bilingual audio stories and the language games to go with them were prepared and used. Since then this method is being used with some variations for all the students of the school.
5. How the Phonic Sounds Method Came Into Use
Glenn Doman method was used for the preschool children. After these children were able to recognize and read 600 English words, the separate English alphabets were to be taught to them. The Phonic Sounds method was used for that purpose and the children learnt the English alphabets using that method.
6. How Education by Design Method Came Into Use
The Young Adults, who had completed 14 years, had expressed their wish to write the 8th standard examinations conducted by the Government of Tamil Nadu. It was decided that they should fulfill their wish essentially through self-learning and be supported in it by the teachers when they could not do it by themselves. All their English lessons were recorded on audiotape in English and Tamil, and the students used that tape. Poetry portion to be memorized was made into songs with tunes conceived by the teachers, and they were recorded on the tape. Listening to this tape the students learnt to sing them which enabled them to memorize the poems easily and then to write them from memory. They learnt their Social Science subject by using Thematic Project Work method. They learnt their Tamil lessons by using ‘guides’ published by private publishing companies. They studied Botany and Zoology in their Science subject by themselves. The teachers taught them only Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and English Grammar.
After these students succeeded in their 8th standard examinations, they wished to write their 10th standard examinations. This also they learnt on the same basis as before. In that year the Department of Education of the Government of Pondicherry had released an audiocassette containing all the Tamil poems in their textbook set in tunes. This tape was a great help for the students to learn their Tamil poetry portion. In the course of their learning other subjects, Education By Design method came into use. Using this method they learnt the topics like Indian Freedom Struggle, India’s Natural Resources, Indian Transport, Trigonometry etc.
Isai Ambalam School made an effort to take this method to its peak use. It was an effort to teach students to prepare, with some help, their own learning plans or programs for one to three months and to persuade them to take total responsibility of successfully implementing them. They could seek the help of teachers whenever needed. This effort succeeded to a certain but sufficient extent. That is, the students who planned for one month and succeeded in implementing it continued it for 6 more months. The students, who were preparing to write their 8th standard open examination, planned for 3 months and succeeded in implementing it. They continued it still further till their examination date arrived.
7. How Basic Sentence Structure Method Came Into Use
Basic Sentence Structure method was used for the Young Adults who were preparing to write their 10th standard government examinations to enable them to write their English paper using their own English sentences instead of memorized sentences. It could be done only by a very few students but too in a very mediocre manner. But in the last year four students preparing for their 8th standard Government examinations succeeded in writing their English examination with their own English sentences and got good marks. One of the students, Murali, who tried to write the examination by memorizing and failed, passed in it by writing using his own English sentences, and he had scored 87 % in the English paper.
8. How Spiritual Methods Came Into Use
Generally three spiritual methods were followed in the school. The first one was to pray to the Divine on important occasions or when problems crop up. As faith in the Divine was there both in the students as well as the teachers and as it was natural for such people to pray to the Divine, both of them used it, whenever needed, while learning or teaching.
The second method was to try to keep the mind quiet when difficulties come during learning and then to find or feel a solution for the difficulties. Every morning all the students and teachers would keep their mind silent for a few minutes and then start the teaching/learning process. This quieting of the mind was also done by them whenever needed.
The third one was to offer the daily school work to the Divine and then start doing it. When European Commission sanctioned our 3-year Youth Education and Training Project, a certain amount of money was allocated for teachers’ training. As most of the teachers were married women and had several daily family responsibilities it was very difficult for them to get training by availing the opportunities inside Auroville. They also could not go out of Auroville to get training from other places. At the same time, they were aware that to implement all these innovative and alternate methods effectively they needed to know their essential aspects well which would be possible only through training, and only then the students could fully benefit by the use of those methods. The teachers who had faith in the Divine chose a particular time of the working day and consecrated for 5 minutes their daily teaching/learning activities to the Divine. Those teachers who did the consecration wholeheartedly witnessed many harmonious, sweet and favorable changes occurring in their school, family and social life. In unexpected ways they received the needed help from all these places, that too in a continuous manner: they were able to get time for their own training; all the family members cooperated; friends, relatives and neighbors provided help. They felt the Divine Force helping them do all their life activities well. As a result, an aspiration to do their teaching work well and an impulse to improve themselves for it emerged and got established in them. Gradually skills and faculties started developing in them.
9. How Training of Others in the Use of these Methods Started
Teachers from outside schools and parents of our preschool children, who were convinced that Glenn Doman method was an easy way to teach reading skills to such children, approached us for learning it. For all such people we gave three ˝-days training in the use of this method. On the first ˝-day they would observe how our teachers did it and how the learning environment was created. On the 2nd ˝-day they would learn to write words liked by the children on cards. On the 3rd ˝-day they would learn to show the cards to the children and enable them to read.
Many of the visiting teachers expressed their wish to get training in the use of Audio Tape with Language Games method. This training was given to them. They would learn to select simple and interesting English stories and render them in simple English and Tamil sentences. Then they would learn to decide what language skills the students could acquire from those stories and what language games they should play for them. Then they would learn to prepare those games. They also would observe how the English classroom was organized for the learning purpose, how the playing of language games was organized so that each group of students played at least 3 games in one session, when and how the students listened to the taped story, how the students prepared for a short cultural performance in English based on the story learnt by them, and how their learning was evaluated from that performance.
The teachers who wanted to learn about how Rishi Valley method was put into practice would see how the study cards were stacked in a sequence, what their contents were, how classroom learning using these cards was organized and how outdoor and other learning activities were given to the students in the Environ-mental Science class. Generally it would take two full days for such people to observe the functioning of Rishi Valley method to a satisfactory extent.
The teachers who wanted to learn about the use of Phonic Sounds method would learn first how our teachers introduced all the 43+ phonic sounds to the children through actions. Then they would learn how to teach the children to read words by blending these sounds and then doing the same to form new words.
The teachers getting training in the use of Education By Design method would learn first to determine what subject content the students needed to learn and what life skills and psychological qualities they could acquire while learning this subject content. Then they would learn to design challenges for this, and then learn about the organization of the classroom activities to help the students to solve this challenge. Then they would learn how teachers evaluated whether the students had learnt the subject content and acquired the intended life skills and qualities. Above all they would learn how to conduct all the teaching/learning activities by giving priority to the needs and expressions of the students.
10. How a Comprehensive Training Program in the Use of All These Methods Got Designed and Implemented
Ten teachers from hand in hand, an NGO in Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu, came to Isai Ambalam School and got training for 8 days in the use of all these methods. There were 600-700 students getting education from the various schools run by that NGO. They were mainly child laborers liberated from the shackles of their employers and were preparing to write their 8th or 10th standard government examinations. Rest of the students came from a tribe called Irula, and this NGO had established a primary school to give education to them.
Before the training started, the essential learning needs of these students and the essential training needs of the 10 trainees in the context of fulfilling those needs were identified. Isai Ambalam School teachers and the executives of this NGO discussed and decided on the methods that could be used to fulfill these needs and on how this could be done. Again it was discussed what aspects of these methods needed to be emphasized. Last the teachers who had acquired a good expertise in one or other of these methods decided, with the help of Subash, on how to teach the trainees all these aspects. Accordingly the trainees received their training. Apart from this, Subash decided what skills were needed by the trainees to properly learn all these methods and effectively implement them, and how the trainees should adopt a student-centered approach in implementing the methods. He designed special training practices for the trainees to acquire these skills and gave them those practices. As self-learning and self-improvement efforts are very important for the students in their school life as well in their future life, he also gave the trainees an extra special training so that they learnt how they could enable their students to acquire the skills needed to take to self-learning and to self-improvement efforts.
11. Common and Important Basis of Such a Development
Behind all this development there is a common and important basic principle. Each of these developments was based either on the felt needs of the students or on the felt needs of the teachers in their efforts to fulfill the students’ needs. All the developments mentioned above arose out of efforts to fulfill these two kinds of needs. This basis alone is the seed from which all successful outcomes emerge.
The starting points of all the methods mentioned earlier lay in attempts to fulfill particular learning needs of the students. In the same way the starting points of all the training given lay in attempts to fulfill particular teaching needs of the teachers. Any learning program or training program should start only from such a basis and take shape if the true objectives of all these methods and training are to be successfully attained. Hence, whatever innovative educational methods one wishes to use, the first essential thing is to identify in detail the learning needs of the students. The next necessary thing is to identify the essential needs of the teachers on that basis. Real evaluation is to see whether these two needs have really been fulfilled. The decisive indication that the educational efforts made have succeeded is only when they have been fulfilled.
If these efforts have to succeed with all the students involved, then the ideal solution is for the teacher to take into consideration each student’s learning level and learning needs and design separate learning programs for each one, to persuade them to take total responsibility of implementing their programs and to help each of them in all possible ways to fulfill that responsibility successfully. Such a solution might appear mind-boggling but if such a solution is attempted on an experimental basis for a few months with a few students at different learning levels, one can be convinced that there are plenty of possibilities for such a solution to succeed. In modern times, the efforts to address and fulfill the various needs, specific as well as general, of individuals in a personalized manner and in an easy, natural and perfect way have been resulting in tremendous successes in various fields, particularly in commercial and service sectors. If such an approach is adopted in the educational field with an attitude of service, that effort can lead to a great success, make all the students accomplishers and give a deep spiritual self-satisfaction to all those who are involved.
Subash
Isai Amalam School
Auroville 605101
April 2005
(Paper presented at the 2-days Inter-DIET Seminar on Innovative Alternate Educational Practices held in April 2005 at DIET, Kilpennathur of Thiruvannamalai District of Tamil Nadu)