Avoid speaking local language in an English medium school.

Hi Sonia,

Hi Sonia,

Hi Sonia, I remember in my school there was a rule that when a child was caught talking in local language, hindi in our case, we were given a black star. The student with maximum black stars was then asked to give up a fave class, such as sports or library etc. maybe you can moderate and use this smae technique.

SONIA LH, maybe you can start a 'share your thoughts' period in the school where children are asked to come up and talk impromptu on anything--what they did yesterday, what they paln to do,something they saw etc. -the idea being that the talk has to be in english. This will help you identify, the words where children get stuck and start using local language, and even the students who require helping hand. Just an idea...

Hi Sonia, I don't know if you had gone thro the reply I gave before in your previous posting regarding the same issue. I am copying and pasting the reply again for your reference. The following methods are used in ESL classes in international schools. But they have smaller class strength which made it feasible to follow the workshop model. See if these would help..

Generally children or anyone who is not confident in speaking a language would get intimidated if they are asked to speak in a larger group. So first split them into smaller groups. Let them choose their group members among themselves so they will feel comfortable with the friends. Smaller the group effective will be the communication as they get very less criticism from peers. In the US schools that follow common core standards, they use workshop model in the classrooms where they form small groups with children of common interest or calibre. It is found to be very effective teaching methodology. Ask each group to choose a topic of their interest- not necessarily related to academics. Allow them to discuss anything. Topic could be on food, movies, video games , the classroom rules they want to change - anything they want to discuss. Then Each member of the group takes a responsibility to share different things like common interests in the topic, any disagreement or agreement, funny things, fun facts etc. with you ( not with the whole class) . Instead of calling them to come to you, you approach the group and sit with them and participate in the discussion. Listen to them. At this point avoid making corrections in the language. First build their confidence. So while listening if you find any mistake in the grammar, instead of correcting it, repeat the same as a question. For example if the child says "I catched the train.. " You could rephrase it. "You caught the train on time?. This gives an opportunity for the child to rephrase her sentence with the correct tense. " Yes I caught the train on time ". Once they are comfortable with the smaller group, make the group a little bigger. Choose one or two person from each group and explain them some games and the rules to play. Let these children in turn explain the rules to their individual group. This activity encourages children to ask questions about the games rules. And everyone would want to participate in the activity. This also motivates them to speak when they have fun things to do Another activity is 5 clues. you could give one of the children from each group an object. Ask the child to describe the object to the group in terms of color, size, shape, it's use etc as clues. After each clue, the rest of the children should try to find out what the object is. Maximum of 5 clues can be used before they find the answer. If children get a chance to mingle with other students whose mother tongue is different from their own, the necessity would drive them to communicate in English. Hope some of these would help.