This small school has an incredibly warm atmosphere, making volunteering here a very enjoyable and rewarding experience. As a gap year volunteer, you will be a teaching assistant in this English medium school for local poor children and teach a variety of subjects and extra-curricular activities.
Your Role: As a volunteer you will primarily be working as teaching assistants alongside the existing teaching staff, particularly for classes 3 and 4 (there are 6 teachers on the roll). Once you are confident enough you may be able to take some classes on your own. You will mainly teach English but can help with the other subjects, as the medium for all is English. You can also help with the extra curricular activities.
The children in the school, particularly those in class 3 and 4, speak a basic level of English, which is good enough for volunteers to be able to improve upon.
The curriculum follows the Local (State) Government syllabus and prescribed schoolbooks. The subjects taught are English, Mathematics, General Knowledge along with Social Studies and Science. The medium of education is English although the smaller children find it difficult to communicate in English and therefore Hindi is also used for teaching. Students of Classes 3 and 4 can understand English better.
What you Gain: This is the perfect gap year opportunity for anyone who enjoys working with children. It is not only for those aspiring to become teachers but also for the others as an experience like this one teaches you all kinds of skills and greatly increases your confidence. You also get a chance to live and work alongside a community and have the satisfaction of helping educate the area's poorest children.