Alas the rain has not retreated... I ran over to the bus stop outside the house to get into town as this is my day off and I am not going to let a little H2O get in the way of it! The Funky Buddha is my salvation today, with a cosy inside area and a health juice on the way; ginger, coriander and Pineapple... it is supposably an aphrodisiac but we will have to see besides its not something I am in massive need of right now :) but the ingredients sounded tasty and now it is here I can confirm that it is truly tasty.
Aha, after checking the book of faces I have found out that I will meet with Rosie today at 3pm outside the Kathmandu guesthouse, exciting stuff! So they day of no plans but squelching has breathed the kiss of life and became a prosperous outing, no matter how many items i own becomes much more absorbent than the toilet paper available... maybe that's an idea.
After the electricity dissipated into the foggy night I cotched a little at the local bar/restaurant for a beer and a quite read (very english) but there were different plans in store for me. Just after I ordered a white couple entered the restaurant and sat behind me, we got talking and I got to know my neighbours over a couple of beers and a plate of momos. Lovely couple of social scientists from Scotland (Wayne) and The States (Charlotte) who have been living in Boudhanilkantha for 16 months teaching university level students the skill of transferring the basic English taught here into cognitive political and social English... Needless to say, it is a very tough job. I think I did mention the levels of English being taught here and just how truly terrible it is presented, so last night I picked their brains to find out why. The reason is just the depleting social level involved in the heart of this country... and its not getting better, its getting worse. An Neplali English teacher is considered the least intelligent of all teachers at a school, they are the dunce and that is why they teach english... and most do not even have a proper grasp of the language they are there to teach. This has led to an infatuation in passing examinations with or without permanent knowledge. Charlotte told me of situations she has been in where a student has asked her what the phrase 'Miss may I come in?' actually means, apparently all they know is that is what they say when they are waiting outside the classroom and the response is to allow them in, but why is beyond most, and even more keep quite about this. I have experienced hugely similar things, for example a very sweet girl at the age of 6 or 7 called Sarita yesterday finished her homework... It read 'list 5 words beginning with 'Y' so she had written, 'Yes', 'Yak', 'Yellow', 'Yesterday' and 'You'. Very Good Sarita! But then I asked her, 'Ok Sarita, can you tell me 5 words that begin with the letter 'Y'?' The poor girl didn't even know what the letter 'Y' was, and when I wrote down the letter or a piece of paper and asked her again... absolutely no idea, and she had just written the words down 3 times. !!!! Arggggg! This is a hard place to first try my hand at teaching that's for sure... but i spent half an hour with her and this problem and by the end she did know these words and also 5 words beginning with X (including the improper words such as Xmas tree and eXtremely' so that was good, but she is 6 or so, it isn't too late for her to learn, however it is for most or at least it will be incredibly hard for both them and the teacher. Apparently kids in Nepali school pick up dyslexic habits from their teachers by shape memory - i.e. due to the alien alphabet they begin to learn the shape of the word and not the actual word... very wrong but its seems common place even in the private schools in which subjects are taught 'through the English medium' which will inevitably lead on to what the 16yr old girl living in the house I am, Bulsha. Bulsha is studying Information Technology at College and yesterday confided in my with tears and stresses that she has 2 weeks to finish this big final assignment and... she cannot even type. !!!! Oh my sweet Jesus, Buddha, Vishnu, Mary, Allah. 1 year out of 2 into her International diploma that could potentially bring her to England or the states to study above someone who just didn't get quite enough As in their GSCEs or was one mark behind a B in one of their A-levels to study IT, without any knowledge or experience with a computer. There is nothing that is not outrageous about this, I have decided to tutor her (and not just do her work for her which i believe she wanted the result to be!) and to actually produce a creditable piece of work, if not to help her pass (as the pass-rate in Nepal is apparently fiendishly low and with markers with little english marking an English medium exam, well you can see where I'm going) but to give her a little pride of a good job done, something I can almost bet, that at 16, she has never had. We shall see...
No comments:
Post a Comment