The Hindu              24.06.2013

Activity cards in more languages now

Friday afternoon was activity time at the first-floor
classroom of a Chennai Corporation Telugu-medium school on V.K. Pillai
Street. Students from classes I-IV huddled in groups and got busy with
their activity-based learning (ABL) cards. Only, the cards were not in
their medium of instruction.

To deal with this gap,
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(SSA) officials have now translated such cards from
Tamil into four languages for students in Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam
and Urdu-medium government schools across the State. According to a
senior official, the translation has been completed and the cards will
soon be distributed.

Activity-based Learning, a
teaching methodology that is employed in classes I-IV in government
schools, looks at making classrooms more participatory, and gives room
for children to complete activities based on various subjects at their
own pace. Under the methodology, a child reaches a milestone in the
subject as she completes a range of activities through ABL cards.

Since
cards in other languages were not available so far, teachers used
charts and various teaching aids to follow the ABL method, an SSA
official said.

Teachers such as K. Shyamala Kumari,
who handles primary classes at the school on V.K. Pillai Street, are
looking forward to the translated cards. While the classroom has ABL
cards in English (Corporation schools have cards in Tamil and English),
Ms. Shyamala largely uses charts and teaching aids as well as some
Telugu cards sourced from Andhra Pradesh. “I have also made flash cards
based on the syllabus to teach the students,” she said.

According
to an SSA official, most of the work on Urdu cards is being done in
Vellore district. The Malayalam cards are being made in Kanyakumari
district, Telugu cards in Tiruvallur district and Kannada cards in
Krishnagiri and Erode districts.

The ABL methodology
was introduced towards the end of 2002, and in January 2003, it was
started on a pilot basis in 13 Chennai Corporation schools. By 2007-08,
it was implemented in 37,486 schools across the State.

There are 310 Urdu-medium schools, 394 Telugu-medium schools, 76 Malayalam-medium and 74 Kannada-medium schools in Tamil Nadu.

Cards used in novel teaching method have been translated from Tamil to four other languages to meet the needs of govt. schools.