On The Internship

Finally I am out of the university after the final exam of 4th semester. After the finals my intent was to have some rest and then get admission in M Phil. But nor rest neither M Phil looks near to me. I was called just after a few days by the department for internship at Little Angles School System. And due to thesis yet to submit, I may not be able to get admission in M Phil this year. So I am on the job actually with a little less than 10000 rupees are paid to me.

The school has three branches in the city and I am in the main branch on Canal Road. It is well built and having an organized structure. Because this is the first time for me to get a chance to be a teacher, it is exciting for me to learn and observe how things are done practically regarding language teaching. My bookish knowledge regarding teaching language will be converted to a more practical one. Currently I am just observing and learning as 7th class, to whom I would be teaching has still to come after summer vacation. This observation is giving me much as well I am trying to analyse the situation critically.

The school offers Cambridge O Levels and A Levels as well as local Matric and Intermediate courses for students. Cambridge students are obviously considered superior on others. The course of this university is good for English. But what I got from this, is that it focuses on reading and writing very much. Listening is also there but lesser, and there is no component of spoken part. The students have to learn reading comprehension, writing narratives and summaries and understand and then write after listening. All this, in my opinion, very much revolves around teaching writing, although this writing is superior than that of local English teaching system which utilizes translation method to teach English.

Another thing is the use of foreign materials. What I am going to teach is printed in Singapore, having all the contexts and pictures from that country. There is a lack of local touch in language teaching. Perhaps they think that foreign materials are more trust worthy to teach English. Although this is true that local materials are not available for these levels, or if available are not of that much standard. Even the books created by provincial text book boards are thin and make only one third or one forth of their Cambridge counter part.

These were some initial thoughts about my new activity, going to be a language teacher. I'll be writing more on this topic.