Learning Simple Words

Language learning starts with knowledge of common words. Thats how kids also learn to speak. First they learn to speak the words in a broken way, and then slowly get their whole mouth in place. But surprisingly, most village kids usually don’t know common English words even after having had English a subject for 4+ years. So how do we teach them these basic words before we can start talking about sentences?

Village kids in India can’t relate to words like “toaster” and “apartment”, which may be obvious to kids raised in cities. No point in getting the best vocabulary book from a fancy bookstore. These books seldom have words that a village kid can relate to.

After having done some experiments, I now think that a great way to build vocabulary is to practice words for objects and activities that are an intrinsic part of village life.

I teach village kids (mostly girls) in an open farm land in a village near Bhopal where there are a lot of rural objects available and activities happening in plain sight (although at a distance so as not to disturb us). So while sitting together on the mat on the land, I pointed to various objects and activities randomly, and asked kids to tell me the English word for it. Sometimes they succeeded, and sometimes they failed. When they failed, I told them the word and asked them to repeat it a few times.

The fun part was to make them repeat these words loudly. They really enjoyed that part! 😇

Practicing language by speaking out loud is great for two reasons. Firstly, it helps in better memorisation. Secondly, a group of village girls speaking English loudly unleashes a certain internal energy in them which is unfortunately curbed down in villages. Unleashing this energy is very important for their mental growth.

I did this activity in a few sessions with many words being repeated in each session, and I can now say with confidence that they now know a lot more words than what they knew earlier.