Monday, September 16, 2013

CAS Activity of Grade VIII



We went to this school in Hydershakote called Joyland. We taught English to 4 students in grade 9. We were told about this a day before and I (Sreya), Rachana, Sushmita and Ankita teamed up and decided to teach English. We didn’t exactly know how much of English the students we were supposed to teach knew, so we decided on the following plan…

  • Give them a test to see where they stand.
  • Teach them accordingly.

The bus ride there took about half an hour and when we went there, I have to admit I was a bit surprised because I wasn’t expecting what I saw in front of me. The school I went for CAS last year was not good and shabby and dirty, but this school looked good compared to the other one. There was a residential building in front of the gate and the main building was behind it. The main building had about 3 floors. The school also had a park and 2 more stretches of one-floored buildings on adjacent to the main one.
Mr. Narinder assigned us to the ninth grade and showed us to the 4 students we were to teach. They took us their classroom which was on the ground floor. We gave them paper and gave them a test to see how good they were. After we corrected the tests, we decided to teach them tenses since they didn’t know a lot about tenses we taught them the three basic tenses: Past, Present and Future.
Then we made them do a couple of exercises based on this. After that, we taught them Figures of Speech like similes, metaphors, etc. They were really easy to teach because they were mature and determined to learn. I myself learned a lot from them because they listened well and learnt as much as they could and, honestly, I take a lot of things for granted which I’m not supposed to. I was really impressed by them. We taught them the different figures of speech and then we decided to play a game.
We taught them active and passive voice then Vinay came to class telling us that we had to leave. We said our goodbyes and boarded the bus to come back to Oakridge. If anyone went to Joyland in the future, I would say that it is a good school and the students (only the older ones) are really nice and good-natured and I had a lot of fun teaching them and also learnt a lot too - Sreya (grade VIII)

After a long assembly, my class hurried back to class. We had to quickly get ready as we would be leaving for a CS trip (Its CAS without Action). We were informed it was a school, but not the one that we had been before too.
However, to my great shock I discovered that I had been out of the team I had been in, and it was only Drama for which I had prepared a plan. But, thanks to my friend Vinay, I was able to join the Science and Math Team, two subjects which I had previously taught at Vivekanda Vidyala. My new team consisted of Ayman, Thiru, Vinay, Karthik and Nishant. We all got into the bus and after a long ride finally reached the Joy land school, which was in Hydershakote.
The school was much bigger and cleaner than I had anticipated, however in the 7th grade classroom in which we were going to teach there were only 8 students! As we began our explanation in Maths however, we learnt that they were very polite, friendly, quiet and eager to learn. We started out with algebra which took a little while to be generally understood, and the same applied for Powers. While the boys were a bit slow so we asked Thiru to help explain to them what was going on. The girls however were quite bright and answered almost all the questions.
Due to the extreme heat I often walked out of the class and roamed for a few seconds in the wind. We taught Photosynthesis with a long detailed diagram
Time had flown so fast we didn't realize we had only five minutes left. However we were the first and only ones to finish on time. As all the others were busy shouting loudly we had fun with our students/new friends. We all agreed that ours was the best class. We were going away now and busy in the next big Oakridge event- the chairman’s cup.
But I think that this was the best thing that I have ever experienced in CAS. It was hot tiring and boring to repeat everything twice in three languages, yes. But I had fun and understood how mutual respect and equal work from each side (we taught, they listened) are great tools for learning and friendship. Another trip there? Count me in - Mruthyunjay Rao K (grade VIII)






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