This week passed by SO FAST.
No kidding.
I called my mom this morning and she was like "eh, so fast finished your volunteering already? One week liao?"
I spent the past five days volunteering in Kanchipuram for an institution I shall not named just yet. My mornings were spent in the school teaching young children aged 5-8, while my afternoons were dedicated to securing more funding options for the institution. Both tasks were important, though I certainly enjoyed the mornings more because teaching is my first love~ wooh~.
I can't believe I was already teaching Tamil alphabets, albeit only to young children who had no prior education. Tamil alphabets are now a breeze for me, though if you are picky, my pronunciation isn't perfect of course. Nowhere near perfect.
I also taught English and Mathematics, and there I used my newly learned Tamil vocabulary to...
great
effect.
Great effect in entertaining the teachers who stood by and tried hard to suppress their laughter as I went about muttering Tamil words as I tried to explain to the kids what I was saying in English. It was always
"Inga paar. Enga yelli? Where is the mouse?"
"Road mil yelli. The mouse is ON the road"
or
"Tamil-ler 'kaangal', English-ler yeppedi sollu? English-ler 'eyes'."
My Tamil teachers would be proud of me, heck yeah!
Today I had to teach continuously for 2 hours (what the heck...truly tested my creativity and endurance teaching in that heat to a group of yawning students who understood only 15% what what I was saying). In the end I had to sing to keep reinvigorate them. Taught them Rasa Sayang which I thought was easy enough, but either I remained to fail as a music teacher or they refused to memorize Malay words. Funny though that the teacher who was sitting aside learned the song really quick and could sing it well!
Oh darn, got to ciao to a temple now. Will write later...actually, probably will only write a few days later when I am at my next destination.
All the best wishes possible to all quarters of the world now.
No kidding.
I called my mom this morning and she was like "eh, so fast finished your volunteering already? One week liao?"
I spent the past five days volunteering in Kanchipuram for an institution I shall not named just yet. My mornings were spent in the school teaching young children aged 5-8, while my afternoons were dedicated to securing more funding options for the institution. Both tasks were important, though I certainly enjoyed the mornings more because teaching is my first love~ wooh~.
I can't believe I was already teaching Tamil alphabets, albeit only to young children who had no prior education. Tamil alphabets are now a breeze for me, though if you are picky, my pronunciation isn't perfect of course. Nowhere near perfect.
I also taught English and Mathematics, and there I used my newly learned Tamil vocabulary to...
great
effect.
Great effect in entertaining the teachers who stood by and tried hard to suppress their laughter as I went about muttering Tamil words as I tried to explain to the kids what I was saying in English. It was always
"Inga paar. Enga yelli? Where is the mouse?"
"Road mil yelli. The mouse is ON the road"
or
"Tamil-ler 'kaangal', English-ler yeppedi sollu? English-ler 'eyes'."
My Tamil teachers would be proud of me, heck yeah!
Today I had to teach continuously for 2 hours (what the heck...truly tested my creativity and endurance teaching in that heat to a group of yawning students who understood only 15% what what I was saying). In the end I had to sing to keep reinvigorate them. Taught them Rasa Sayang which I thought was easy enough, but either I remained to fail as a music teacher or they refused to memorize Malay words. Funny though that the teacher who was sitting aside learned the song really quick and could sing it well!
Oh darn, got to ciao to a temple now. Will write later...actually, probably will only write a few days later when I am at my next destination.
All the best wishes possible to all quarters of the world now.
you know YH, it is really fun reading your posts in India. For some reason, it reminded me of "Eat,Pray, Love"
ReplyDeletehope you have a great time there, and yeah I want to share this on FB if you don't mind *wink*
kaangal?
ReplyDeletei thought eyes was kaanu?
=_=!
Mas, sure you can post it, but doing so hiked up my site's traffic! no worries, my blog's public anyway. Glad that you like reading it. I have been writing journal entries almost daily but I doubt I will have the time to publish them since I hit the ground running once I get back to KL...the dept. already said that I will get lots of committee work....gasp.
ReplyDeleteKumi: eye = kaN, so eyes=kaNgal. Quite sure I am right. You may be referring to the spoken form, though I think the spoken form also kaNgal ar..hahaha. But memang ada differences in Tamil from city to city in Tamil Nadu, whatmore between Malaysia and Tamil Nadu? When are we are going to do Tamil conversational practice? hmmm?
I totally agree with Mas! Reading your adventures in India is like reading the book Eat, Pray, Love. Wow, teaching in Tamil must have been a great experience. I wanna hear you speak Tamil when I am in Malaysia.
ReplyDelete