Some weeks ago we started to give Spanish and English lessons to the older ones in Balmandir. Up to now they are acquiring basic notions of Spanish and they can already express some simple sentences to greet, ask the time, the name, the age… It is kind of funny to walk around the house or Bhimphedi and suddenly hearing  “Como estás?” (“How are you?”), “Adiós!” (“Bye”) or  “Buenos días!” (Good morning!”) (even if sometimes they wish you good morning right before going to sleep! We’ll allow them to do so, poor them…) Besides, not only Balmandir kids greet in Spanish. Our boys have taught their classmates some sentences and they also shout in Spanish to us when they see us around.

Back to the Spanish lessons, the kids are learning basic vocabulary, the days of the week, the months of the year, the numbers, the alphabet, to conjugate some verbs… step by step! Every fifteen days they take part in a Quiz run by Dani. With some against the clock questions we check if they have assimilated the contents during the week and depending on how they manage the situation they can accumulate some points. Those points will be converted into prizes which they will have to choose by themselves. In this way we put their cooperation and effort capacity to the test while they learn a new language.

Concerning English lessons, we are reading every day a fragment from the novel “Momo”, written by Michael Ende. This book narrates the adventures of Momo, an extravagant girl but with an exceptional sense of empathy. Momo has to fight against the Men in Gray, some thieves who steal the time and joy to her town citizens. With this reading we intend the kids to get better English skills and to learn new expression forms and vocabulary. From time to time we watch a part of the movie based on the book. In this way we get away from routine and we clarify some parts of the book that they didn’t understand well. We also place some other activities among the Momo reading, as grammar or writing exercises and more amusing other ones.

In April we started English classes for high school students in the public school in Bhimphedi. The only specialty that is offered in school is “education” for those boys and girls who want to become teachers, specialty in English.

Most of these students do not speak English. And they have studied in a model school where they are learning by rote, where teachers used physical punishment, lack of punctuality and determination (not a day that all school teachers appear in class). So, we thought that if we provided some different classes, where they could improve their English (to be taught in a few years) might be interesting to think how they want to teach in the future.

The classes are presented as follows: “The classes are completely optional, and do not put any note or give any certificate. Come only if you are interested in learning, do not have to pay anything, nor get teachers paid. But teachers will come every day to class, so all we ask is that you come every day and you may be punctual.”

Since the first week we saw that these instructions were not as easy to follow for these future teachers… Every day, a different number of students, and every day there were and reappeared old who had not come the day before. Why? “Big problem at home”.

So we gradually reducing the number of students, thinking that if they saw that we were strict, they would be responsible. But eventually only one student has survived. But what a wonderful student! Just for him it is worth all the work.

Prabhat comes every morning at 9:30 at the shelter, once finished high school classes (which hopefully are 6 to 9 am). When he is with us he practices English grammar, reads Harry Potter in English, learns typing or using the computer.

In addition to strengthen this guy, we decided to sign him for teaching us help small children at the shelter. So he can gain experience and earn some money.

There can be no other way to end this post by thanking the wonderful volunteers who have been taking these classes in high school: Laura Conde, Nerea Guezuraga and Isabel Valero! Thank you and thank you!

I leave you with the first video of Prabhat directed by Sergio Rodríguezm an original story that Prabhat has prepared in class! The video has the option to add subtitles in English to follow better the story:

https://youtu.be/sPb5O_UZqXo