A “Haali” Change :)

This little incident happened in class today and I couldn’t help smiling about it all day.

It is a rather small event but marks a milestone in my efforts with the little students in the village school. Before I tell you about it though, you’ll have to learn new vocabulary. The local (Bhojpuri) term for fast is “haali” and “likha” means “write”.

Now, here goes. As all kids, the ones here are always in a rush to complete work as soon as possible. And used the term haali too often with one another. All these days I corrected and taught them to say “fast” as in, to “write fast”, “come fast”, etc.

And then today in class a kid said, “ haali likha!” But before I could correct, another student said, “No, say Fast”, and then another one said…. “No fast… Write Fast!”

The kids are finally learning to relate words with the things they see around and use them too! And best of all, their favorite sentence and the one oft repeated is, “Teacher, I know full English!” (Well yes, at that I too can’t help but LOL! 😀