I have not made any reference to my Spoken English classes recently, but they have still been going on, though with certain difficulties to be overcome. The other day, I arrived at the Seminar Room to discover it filled to the brim with a cheering crowd. Sudur Paschimanchal Royals, the regional cricket team, sponsored by the college, were playing an NPL (Nepal Premier League) match – I don’t know against whom. Which meant finding an alternative venue for the lesson. And since I have no real way of contacting any of them, it ended up with me having just the one student, Nithika (emphasis on the first syllable) in Aparna’s office cum staffroom. And since the chess sets were locked away in there, and she had previously expressed an interest in chess, I decided to teach her. She is very bright, and soon mastered the basics – did you know that the rook, knight and bishop are referred to in Nepali as the elephant, horse and camel? It also gave us a context for conversation, which is what the lesson is all about.
I have become far more relaxed about my role since it has occurred to me that I do not actually have to teach them anything during these sessions. I am far closer to the French assistante that secondary schools used to employ (though my understanding is that these are far less common now), whose job is to encourage conversation to give them practice and to build their confidence. So that is what we do… as well as, in my case, throwing in a bit of Drama improvisation.
Today we talked about movies. They each told me about their favourite movie, explaining what it was that they liked about it. And of course I could not resist telling them about “It’s A Wonderful Life”
The rehearsal today was always going to be a tough one, as it was the whole of the first half of the play, designed to focus on how one scene linked with another. Even so, I was disappointed that so many of them did not know their lines, and had entirely forgotten any movement ideas we had put in. And it came to a pretty dismal end, largely my own fault, when I managed to confuse the order of scenes(!) so that we did not get to the end of the act.
But I am not despondent, having been here (and worse than here!) so many times in the past. We need to step up, no doubt about that, with just two weeks to go. Onwards.
