Teaching English, and good Storying Session (Journal Entry)

Yesterday I was at the neighbors house and kind-of half agree to teach the two girls who live there English. Whoops…The mother of the family suggested it and then said, “you know, I’ll teach you Kahani, you teach them English- then it’s equal.” I said I would try for a few days until we leave, to see how they like it and if it works out.

First of all, it is something I would love to do- (that is my background, after all)- though I don’t want it to take away from the work. The girls do not really speak much Kahani, but they do understand. My plan is to have my language session with the mother first, then whatever I learned that day, teach that to the girls in English. Hopefully, for their English sessions, I would only use Kahani and English- skipping Hindi, thus it would be a practice for my Kahani…though I’m not sure if I know enough Kahani to do that…but I will try.

Today’s session with Anne was perhaps the best ever. It was the best in every way. We had fun, we laughed a lot, we fixed half of the creation story, she remembered it…it was just overall a great session. She did a great job of helping us figure out what would be important, and how to change it to make it more clear for people. At one point we had changed a part, and we asked her which way of telling it was better. She said, “both are good.” We asked again, and she still wouldn’t say one was better than another. Then we asked, “Which one would that shopkeeper like better?” She then said “the one with the names in it…” We asked, which one would your family like better?” She again said, “The one with the names in it.” We then said, “So, should we use that one? She said yes.

I think she is really comfortable with us- and she does “stick” to some things that she feels are important, while other times, we can persuade her, at least to really think about why something is in the story, or if we can take it out. I’m glad she doesn’t just accept everything we say, but also has an opinion. Another thing was that she was able to remember the story pretty well- which was amazing since we hadn’t worked on it or talked about it for about 2 weeks. She is amazing!

We will finish discussing Creation tomorrow, and then get it recorded again. We will probably then do the same thing with the Fall story, and perhaps get her to “test” the story with her sewing class…not sure how that will work out, but we’ll see.