How I Learnt French..

Lemme juz narrate you a bit of my childhood. It was my favorite summer season and my last working day before summer vacation. I was in Kindergarten. “Where are we going for the summer vacations? What will be our plans???” Some exciting questions that were popping-up in my mind, when I was on the way back home from school. I stayed with my family in France, my father was posted there in one of the government concerns that manufactured carpets in the year 1986. As soon as I reached home, I saw my mom sitting on the sofa with all our luggage packed.

Fascinated by the new language that I have been learning in school for a while, there were some common sentences that I had definitely managed learning. Since my maid was also French, how I learnt French was not a difficult task for me, I interacted a lot with her. I asked my mom,” Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé à vous?”, which means what happened. She said that we were shifting to India because of Summer 1992 riots in England. We basically belong to India. As French was an all new exciting language for me, so was Hindi.

But soon I grasped the new language and forgot the one I had learnt as a toddler. Days passed, so did the months and years. I had completely forgotten how to speak French. But do you know, one can never forget how to write any language that you have once learnt, throughout your life. Inspite of our settling down in India, I had always dreamt of going to France, listening to the tales and lovely time, my parents had spent in abroad. What wine, what high-fashion, and what art? How I learnt French? My mother always missed France. 

And finally I had made it. ISA offers the Carlos Castaneda Memorial Scholarship. This scholarship was awarded to me based on the academic achievement. To be eligible for it, the students must have some knowledge of the foreign language with good ranking. By the grace of God, I had both. My little knowledge about French had minted me a great opportunity. As soon as I reached Bellegarde - Vouvray Aerodrome airport, I came across several advertisement boards with French written all over them.

I tried putting up the alphabets together. It did work. From words I learnt phrases and from phrases, I made sentences. In a few days, I was almost through with the basics of French language. To add on to this, a brand new app has come up on iOS, that teaches you alphabets of the world. Phonetic is also a wonderful feature of this app. With the app and my little knowledge almost as a toddler, I had really made my dream come true and also got back the time my parents had longed for. How I learnt French so easily was sometimes even surprising for me. Today they were coming to spend entire week with me and cherish the memories.

Slum-children in Dharavi, Mumbai learn English Alphabets

Last summer, I traveled to Mumbai in India for a couple of months, and I was troubled by the children who beg for money. Do I give them money or food or neither? If I give money, exploitative adults may take it. My family regularly contributes to Indian charities, but that is small relief in these miserable plight.

Your desire to help a child in distress is commendable, whichever of those options you choose. But I chose a different road to make those children self-reliable. Those Children were illiterate so I thought of teaching them the English Language. The challenge was to begin from the base that is teaching them alphabets.

I love exposing young children to letters! It is so fun to see them find letters in their environment and connect letters they know in their name. As we all know, letters and letters sounds are the foundation to our English language so identifying letters and the sounds they make is very important.

To say if only I can say my School was under a tree in Dharavi, the slum in Mumbai. Dharavi is the largest slum in Asia and one of the largest slums in the world. Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire” was shot as well in this slum. The railway station was very close to the area. During teaching, we used to get the train sound.

Most of the children who came to learn the English language were basically child labor- factory-workers and rag-pickers. To make alphabet learning not a struggle but fun I got some activities. The activities included Letter Picture Cards, Large letters (for creating letter art), Letter Poem, Letter Snack and Sensory Ideas, Letter Book, Dot paint letters, Letter Flipbook, Letter Hunt, Letter Puzzles, Letter Lacing, Letter Size Up, Letter Writing, Letter Match-Up and Letter Sort.

The children found learning English alphabets extremely interesting. These children were amazing learners. They are great fun to be with. Given the opportunity, they too can experience an incredible India and participate in the exercise of nation building. Education can transform them from dependents to driving forces. In the words of H. H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and I quote “Education is a vehicle for transformation or metamorphosis of the self and an aid to the growth of economy.”