Music has the power to bring us together in ways we don’t understand. During a time like this, the prolonged lockdown due to the pandemic, one of the things that can provide us with a sense of comfort and hope is music. And our volunteer teacher, Hema, is providing exactly that to her students from Reetha, Uttarakhand. Hema is an Indian Navy officer based in Bangalore, who volunteers to teach with eVidyaloka when she’s off duty. She has been teaching Harshitha, Lokesh, Mayank, Nirmal, Deepthi, and Suman through the Learn From Home initiative for the past few months.

The pandemic has forced students to stay at home and attend their classes online. And to keep these online classes from getting mundane, teachers have been coming up with a variety of fun ways to keep the kids interested in their classes. Hema chose to teach her students English through songs. And the way the children were so excited about this new method made it even better.

She started teaching with the help of this new method in September 2020 and by the first week of November, the students were already singing “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson, lyric by lyric. In one month, the children were much more confident in their English speaking skills, and according to Hema, they had gotten much more fluent too. She’s also taught them “Hakuna Matata” from The Lion King, “Firework” by Katy Perry, and “Never Say Never” by Justin Bieber. They look forward to her classes eagerly every week and she says it’s an absolute delight to hear them hum these songs while doing their work.

When asked why she chose the first song, she said, “Since a lot of negative things are happening in our world today, from the pandemic to natural disasters, we all need to be kind to each other and our environment. So it’s a peaceful message that our world needs to heal. And most importantly these songs are helping them to catch the words better. Their English has become much more confident and fluent now.”

Apart from teaching them English in such a fun way, she also guides them to make the right choices to achieve the goals that they have set for themselves. She helps by asking them to first set an ambition for their future and then guides them to the next step they should take in order to achieve their goal. She just wants them to feel confident and on par with the kids from urban cities when they have to go out into the world to chase their dreams. And she’s chosen an entertaining way to do that as well.

Hema aims to have fun while teaching and she wants her students to enjoy learning. That was the whole point of her finding a different way to teach them English. She has seen a remarkable change in her students’ speaking and pronunciation skills and she aims to make them better with each class. Let’s work together to bring more amazing teachers like Hema to more students across India. You can contribute here or volunteer your time here.

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