Celebrating Abundance in Collabaction:

Guest Curator: Gubbachi

This bi-weekly Bachpan Manao Badhte Jao newsletter is presented by Gubbachi

About Gubbachi

Founded in 2015, Gubbachi Learning Community is a Section 8 company working towards the educational inclusion of marginalised children from migrant families. We also design interventions to enable these migrant communities to access benefits and entitlements, and build awareness about various social issues.

Learning to Read Another Language - The Early Childhood Classroom in Gubbachi

What does learning mean for a child whose family has migrated to the big city? What does it mean when the child’s home language is different from the school language in the city? The complexities of language teaching and learning is always at the front and centre of Gubbachi’s education work with migrant families in Bengaluru city.

The multilingual Early Childhood classroom (3-6 years) in Gubbachi’s Bellandur centre is a fascinating space where one can observe these dynamics. We can hear conversations in either Kannada, Hindi or Bangla (spoken language). The classroom makes space for all these languages. Children get to use their home languages as a resource to learn how to read the alphabets of the local language- Kannada. Literacy in a language that is new!

An environment which values every child’s ability to learn enables her to express without inhibition and employs different approaches to make this possible.

Known to Unknown

The letters of the alphabets which have similar phonic sounds are introduced together in clusters.

Activities that use child’s prior vocabulary makes their foray into the world of literacy gentle and anxiety free. The teacher starts with making a mind map of a letter where the children bring in words that they already know, that are associated with the sound of that letter. They bring in words from their existing vocabulary which is likely to be of their home language – which is fine.

This was a real interaction in the classroom:

The letter ‘ra’ was introduced in the class during the last two sessions. The children knew 2-3 associated words and were drawing the pictures on paper.  A Hindi speaking child drew a ‘bowl with few specks’ on it.

Child: yeh ‘ra’ se shuru hota hai (this starts with ‘ra’)

Teacher: Accha, isko kya bolte hain? (okay, what is this called?)

Child: Naam bhool gaya…hamare yahan khatey hain…meetha hain (I forgot the name… we eat this in our homes…it’s sweet)

Teacher: Kheer hai kya? (is it kheer?)

Child: Kheer nahi …meetha hai. ‘Ra’ se hain. (Not kheer… it’s sweet. Starts with Ra)

After a while, he walks up to the teacher and says - ra se rabdi!!!

Another child draws few dots on the paper and comes to the teacher asking - yeh idhar Bangalore main ghar ke bahar daltey … ‘ra’ se shuru hota hain. Kya hain?  (We put this outside our houses in Bangalore … it starts with Ra… what is it?)

Rangoli!

The child was observant of the local culture and revived the experience into their literacy class!

Oral and Aural

Letters are also introduced through a fun padya (couplet) which has the words starting with the sound of the target letter, repeatedly heard in a fun story.

Example: Letter ‘sa’ has a padya about a lion who cycles to the market and buys apples, guava and sampige flowers! All sa words in Kannada.

ಸಿಂಹ ಒಂದು ಸೈಕಲ್ ಏರಿ ಸವಾರಿ ಹೊರಿಟಿತು

ಸಂತೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸೇಬು ಸೀಬೆ ಸಂಪಿಗೆ ತಂದಿತು

Some reinforcing activities that are conducted along with each padya -

Auditory: The padya is sung with clapping of hands each time the letter sound is heard. This helps the child to focus and isolate the letter-sound – heightening phonemic awareness.

Visual: Rebus picture activity is conducted where flashcards having pictures of these words are shown. This helps register the meaning of the word using visual cues. The child’s Kannada vocabulary also grows.

Writing

The script is introduced after the padya in very gentle and multi-modal ways:

• Tracing on the sandpaper letters

• Placing stones over the outline of letters

• Shaping the letters with clay

• Walking along the outline of the letter drawn on the floor

• Games for recognizing letters and the associated vocabulary:

• Memory games where the child has to match a letter to the associated picture cards

• Using the letters as stepping stones (where the child says an associated word of the letter stepped on) to reach the other end.

• Bingo (the children are given few picture/letter cards, if all their cards are called out by the teacher they shout Bingo)

• I spy (Spread out picture cards of different letters ‘I spy a picture that starts with the letter ‘ma’, the child has to pick the card and say the word.

Music and movement

During Music and Movement sessions, teachers guide the children to sing songs in a rhythm and complete with actions. These sessions introduce the children to new vocabulary in Kannada which supports language learning and creates meaning for the child.

It’s a joy to watch the children sing when they are playing or are by themselves and it becomes a part of their oral expression naturally.

Art

Language learning is further reinforced through art, colours and tactile materials.  Teachers guide the children to create artefacts of the new words learnt that begin with the target letter. For e.g. ‘ra’ rocket, ‘da’ doni (boat) or a ‘ma’ mane (house). These are then exhibited on the walls of the classroom.

Learning the local language has many payoffs for the displaced child. It introduces them to the culture of the place they are now becoming a part of.

Writing the Kannada letter ‘Ra’ through Art

For most children in Gubbachi’s Bridge program, learning how to read and write in Kannada is an academic necessity as it makes the child’s passage into the Government School smooth and easy.

The idea is to make learning seamless from what the child knows to what he needs to learn. It is critical to bridge that zone for the migrant child.

The Bachpan Manao Network at Play

Interested in curating the next edition of the BMBJ newsletter? Write in to us at bachpanmanao@gmail.com.