Interview with kannada tutor
An interview with a Kannada tutor was conducted to
understand the approach taken to teach spoken kannada.
1. What languages do you teach?
Kannada, Marathi, Hindi, English
2. Whom do you teach?
Children (std. 1-4) and house wives, ladies of all age
groups come to learn (20-60 yrs).
3. For Kannada, what is the duration of the course?
6 months
4. What do people want to learn?
Some just want to learn to speak kannada, some want
to learn to read and write too.
5. And why do they feel the need to learn kannada?
So that they don’t feel like outsiders. They need it for
autorickshaws, at hospital, shopping.
6. How do you start teaching them?
For spoken kannada, I start with small words. Then I
teach them how to make sentences.
For those who want to read and write, I start with
teaching them the alphabets, vattakshar, etc.
7. How do you keep people interested?
I teach them based on the occasion, the usual every
day conversations, for example, if you are in a bus,
what is the conversation. I also ask them to watch
kannada news.
8. How do you evaluate them?
I take test every month. I give them conversations in
kannada and ask them to translate to hindi/english or
say sentences in hindi/english and ask then to translate in kannada. I revise what is learnt in the whole
week on fridays.
9. Do you give them any print material?
I do refer to a book. They themselves write down
kannada sentences in their mother tongue.
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