'Gubbacchi Speaking' an idea to teach English to children

‘Gubbacchi Speaking,’ an innovative spoken English programme initiated by Puttur education block for primary school children to instil confidence among students and parents that the government schools are no less than private schools, is on the path of success.

Block Education Officer (BEO) G S Shashidhar and his team have also decided to claim the copyright for their dream project. For Shashidhar, who has 19 years of experience in four districts, this project is not just about teaching English, but a master plan to protect government schools.

According to the government policy, there is no scope to establish English medium schools for primary school kids. But, he did not depend on the government, but decided to bring a small change in the traditional system so that students learn English by Class 7 and emerge as winners in global competition.

Shashidhar, along with Vimal Kumar of Nelyadi Government Higher Primary School, Prashanth of Haaradi Government Higher Primary School worked for three months (May, June, July) and formed a team of ten members. Jagannath of Kombettu Higher Primary School designed the text.

Extended to 31 schools

The ‘Gubbacchi Speaking’ project which was launched in August first week has been extended to 31 primary schools of the district out of 182.

“We did not make it mandatory anywhere, the Head Masters have shown interest voluntarily. A separate teacher will be appointed for the project and they would teach Communication English. Honorarium would be given to the teacher with the help of senior students of the school, School Development and Monitoring Committee (SDMC), organisations, donors and also with the help of teachers,” he told Deccan Herald.

A programme was held at Government High School in Konalu under Mission 95+ Season 2 recently.

How it works?

Dr Madhav Bhat of Vivekananda Degree College, a guiding force for the project, said English is never an enemy of Kannada.

“Between five and 15 years, children can learn many languages. But we are preventing them from learning English. If they learn English, it would increase their employability. We teach English through oral drills and with 10-12 sentence structures. It would take 10 minutes in the 40 minutes class. Moreover, we teach according to the interest of students. It is true that there is dearth of good English teachers. So, parents of students or housewives can take part in this programme,” he said.

Mission 95+ in Mysuru

The Mission 95 Plus, a special programme to improve SSLC results, which was successfully implemented in Puttur taluk in 2014-15, has impressed the Mysuru Zilla Panchayat.

The Zilla Panchayat conducted the programme with the name ‘Mysuru, Guri Nooru’ on November 14 on the occasion of Children’s Day.

Another programme

Meanwhile, Shashidhar said that the Puttur education block has launched this year’s ‘Mane-Mana Beti’, a programme of teachers visiting students’ houses and distributing ‘Daari Deepa’ books on October 15, on the day of Dr Abdul Kalam’s birth anniversary.

Puttur Assistant Commissioner Sathish Kumar D M inaugurated the programme, he said. Parents too learn English Shashidhar said that the ‘Gubbacchi Speaking’ concept has impressed people already.
In Mundoor of the taluk, along with students, parents too attend Communication English classes from 4 pm to 5 pm on Saturdays. The officials have to involve in this kind of ground work, he said.