A Page from A 1963 Diary

Monday

Still baffled by RIE timetable and all those initials, TP and LL and SD et al – never to mention VCD being i/c of SP? Not overjoyed to note that REW is down to do DL in LH on Wednesday. Spend ages collecting 101 bits and pieces for it, pencil, ball, banana, ruler, marble etc, plus a paper bag to hide them in.

Held up by torrential downpour. River now flowing through outdoor classrooms and hostel kitchen flooded. Trainees hungry and sullen throughout the afternoon. Was it a malicious coincidence that today’s interpretation passage dealt with ‘India’s food problem: the monsoon’?

Catch a glimpse of a cream-coloured 1929 Austin swishing out, the only vehicle at RIE able to cope with the mud.

Tuesday

Must write to the Guinness Books of Records – for the first time ever Mr. Ghani has missed his morning round of the classes. Learned later he was coping with Board members, instead. Invited to meet them at tea party where as always only South Indian coffee was served. A lexical confusion? Or just sly Dravidian humour?

Intrigued to overhear Sam Durairaj’s rich baritone ringing out an unfamiliar nursery rhyme. Joined the class long enough to learn “Boney was a Warrior” – and to learn who Boney was. (Also learned incidentally it is because his RP is VVG that VCD is i/c of SP).

Wednesday

Nervous start to the day – the Lecture Hall for my Demonstration Lesson. Front benches crammed with expectant kids, trainees and staff behind. (How smug they look.) All going smoothly till the paper bag burst – floor littered with teaching aids. Now know what a failed conjurer feels like. Made rather a nonsense of “what’s in the bag?” – and just when we were all communicating!

Rumour has it our present Director of Studies is returning home to New Zealand – will be replaced by Scotsman called Ure. Trainees are asking when they are going to be taught English by a real Englishman.

First-rate lesion in today’s Teaching Practice – on question tags. Not a single slip-up till the very end when the teacher dismissed the class with “You’ll finish the exercise at home, isn’t it?” (Come to think of it, what sensible and simple usage. We, all of us ought to adopt it, shouldn’t we? – I mean, isn’t it?)

Thursday

My luck day, the one with a free period. Spend it organizing staff for Speech Practice. Fall to wondering why out Indian staff can all pronounce /o/ so effortlessly when a mother-tongue Ulsterman cannot. Awakened from day-dreams by strains pop record “Que Sera, Sera” coming from MPB’s office. Find him hard at work preparing lesson on the future tense. First we have Italic hand-writing. Next it’s patriotic jingles about Bonaparte. Now we’re going all Spanish. And at an Institute of English, no less.

Besieged by deputation of trainees, third time this week, on about the difference between ‘will’ and ‘shall’. Won’t accept that I don’t know. Then a brain-wave – send them across to MPB. Que Sera!

Curious fishy smell in the office car today. Wonder of Driver Masoody Khan has been using it o get himself to Ulsoor lake. He wouldn’t risk it – or would he?

Friday

Sat in on Director of Studies’ methods lecture on the three V’s – Vim, Vigour and Vitality. Trainees impressed by D of S’s own Vim etc – situational teaching, did you say?

Little sign of any of the V’s in the class that followed – Item 21: Telling the time. Stolid teacher and dreary presentation – which makes (telling) the time pass slowly. Unintentional light relief from the classroom clock, with loose hands that could register 6.30 and nothing else.

Saw the ‘will V. shall’ brigade on the rampage again – Sri. K. L. S. Rao locked me inside the Language Laboratory for protection, muttering something about being glad to see staff using his LL at last.

Saturday

Popped into the Horsburgh stick-figure workshop. Trainees preparing to teach

He / she / is / running

They / are / running

Black-board looks like the start of a massed marathon. So engrossed that I trample on a chalk-piece, reducing it to dust. Muniswamy has already billed me for it.

Variation on a theme – invited trainees to make up their own rhymes. Some curious results.

            Mani had a little lamb

                        He asked it, “What do to?

            For I’m a vegetarian

                        And so of course are eve.”

Well, food for thought perhaps. Early closing day – and the cheering prospect of a weekend ahead. Better get started on deciphering next week’s time-table.

Reg Wright

Representative

The British Council, Bangladesh

was Professor at RIE, Bangalore and

Regional Education Adviser, The British Council Division, Madras.

Courtesy: Perspectives on English Language Teaching by J. M. Ure and S. Velayudhan

Collected by: P. K. Jayaraj and R. Gangadhar, RIESI, Bengaluru