Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 35 to 42. TEACHING IN INDIA by Elise Cooper ‘Elise in India’. That was the name of my blog last year when I took a year out between school and university. I was lucky enough to get a teaching job abroad through an international organization. I was going to work in a school attached to a children’s home in north-west India. There were eight of us on ...

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 35 to 42.

TEACHING IN INDIA

by Elise Cooper

‘Elise in India’. That was the name of my blog last year when I took a year out between school and university. I was lucky enough to get a teaching job abroad through an international organization. I was going to work in a school attached to a children’s home in north-west India. There were eight of us on the week-long introduction course in the capital, Delhi. As well as advice and ideas for teaching we were given information about health and local customs, and learned a few essential phrases in the local language.

Another course member, Lucy, was coming to the same school as me and we were both nervous when we set off on the 15-hour bus ride to the children’s home. I had worked as a classroom assistant before, but here I wouldn’t be much older than some of my pupils. How would I manage? My worries disappeared once we reached the home. Our rooms were on the top floor above the girls’ bedrooms and from the window we looked out across flat fields full of fruit trees and could just see the snow-covered mountain tops in the distance.

There were 90 children in the home, aged between five and 20. In addition there were a small number of pupils who came in each day from the area around. Although they were a little shy to start with, they were so keen to ask us questions that we quickly became friends.

Lucy and I taught four lessons a day, mainly spelling, reading and general knowledge. We had a textbook but since it wasn’t very exciting, we tried to make the lessons more interesting with activities and games. This wasn’t always easy: there was a mixture of ages in each class because pupils had begun their education at different times. Like schoolchildren everywhere, they didn’t always behave perfectly in class. However, they used to send us notes apologizing afterwards, or thanking us for an interesting lesson, so we didn’t really mind.

The best fun came after school, though. We spent many happy hours playing games or football or just chatting with the children. On Friday afternoons, Lucy and I were in charge of sport, which had just been introduced at the school. Trying to organize fifty children into cricket teams is something I’ll never forget. Another of my memories is playing in goal for a boys’ football game. Even though Lucy and a group of little girls joined in as extra goalkeepers, we still managed to let the other side score!

I was terribly sad to leave. I felt I had learned as much as - if not more than - my pupils from the experience.

According to Elise, what do Indian pupils and school children everywhere have in common?