By Kyntiewborlang Kharakor
Sugar is a highly addictive drug. I didn’t realize this until I tried to go off sugar. It has been six months since I have abstained from this drug. But once in a red-moon, I often cheat. Daring as it might sound for someone with an unpredictable call of nature, I have learned to always carry hope… and toilet paper. So, strategically, I stepped into Karak Chaa Café (adjacent Assam Oil Petrol Pump) for a matka of Karak Ginger. To distract my anxious gut, I took out my Shillong Times and a diary to pen thoughtful lines (I enjoy being a conflict connoisseur – I was expecting a Mr Bhogtoram Vrs … in the Letters section). As I wait for the stubborn rain to fly away to Sohra, I delve deep into the editorial section and much to my delight Madam Editor’s article “Rewriting the rules of journalism” turned out to be a delicious SNACK to my sugary drink.
Dear readers, I would like to share a ground report or rather an experiment (ongoing) that I have recently conducted as part of my vocation as the Great “Inglis Maker” of a school in the heart of Shillong’s Educational Hub. Through this article, I intend to share and humbly seek feedback, instead of brazenly belittling or shaming my beloved students which, God forbid – if misunderstood might be a cause for getting CANCELLED by my young followers.
Experiment Group
The target or purpose of this experiment is aimed at language learning related issues only. My test subjects are Class III and Class IV students – far more disruptive than the Gen Z for they are the latest “Gen Alpha” (Covid Schooling Batches) – my beautiful little minions who shower me with all the love and attention that would make every other teacher jealous. Sadly, till date I couldn’t come up with a title for my experiment which is catchy and CLICK-BAITY enough to get the attention of the Gen-Z/Gen-Alpha.
Pre-Experiment Survey
After getting several complaints from teachers from the primary to the secondary level, I took an initiative to informally interview my fellow English Compadres. Terrible Handwriting, Poor Phonetic and Intonation, Weak Vocabulary, sentence formation and spellings (color/colour?), Gen Z/informal language terms in copies and scripts, no proper spacing and capitalization, no Margins/Lines/Punctuation and the list goes on and on.
Experiment and Plan of Action
Fortunately, our Conversation Period is a life saver in dealing with some of these issues. To break the ice, we started with a simple Extempore Speech Exercise with topics that range from simple personal introductions, likes/dislikes, hobbies and move on to other topics that the students themselves are familiar with. Each student has to write a word on a chit (a roar of laughter followed ‘cuz’ they thought that it was a ‘smelly’ word) of paper – a phrase or a question related to any topic that they have learnt from any subject which is then kept in a ‘MUNCH’ box. Similarly, in a yellow Cherry Blossom Plastic Cup, we kept chits with roll numbers. For weeks, we gamble with luck, as one by one they took their turns to speak. As a form of minor assessment, during the Creative Week (July), we made it mandatory for all students (class wise) to participate in the Extempore Speech Competition.
Post Half-Yearly, we ventured into a new realm – Newspaper Reading Activity. Much to the annoyance of Grandparents and “Daddy-Pigs’, in the next class, students came to school armed with The Shillong Times, Nongsain Hima, Mawphor and Sunday Pullout in their bags. “Sir, do you really get diarrhea because of us?” – asked a student who had just read my article. Then, page wise we learn how a newspaper is divided into sections. They now understand where the Morning Assembly’s news reports (read by the seniors) came from.
Observation and possible effective solutions
Many students excelled. Some students could not speak. Some, even while reading from the note that they have themselves written committed a lot of errors – a question and a statement, a comma or a full stop etc. – does not make any difference. In the words of my senior most colleague – “They don’t speak/write/read the language everyday te Sir, how will they get the hang of it?” It awakened my empathy for the students, for it reminded me of my beloved Ms Begum’s advice and our normal classroom banter during schooldays – “Mynta ka sngei mia song aaye lih ha ti-phin?… “Nga song sohlah-khliah-piat bad doh masei mia” (What did you bring for tiffin? I brought mashed potatoes and beef). Raised on the other side of town, we speak our own dialect with classmates in school. This is the main cause of stage fright or fear of speaking openly in a group. Students feel shy because of their inability to express themselves in a clear language or even in simple sentences.
The problem with Gen Z and Gen Alpha generation is that they don’t even have a firm language foundation – their own mother tongue. They grew up watching YouTube videos involving colourful toys and candies – Channels like Cocomelon, Vlad and Niki, Nastya, Kids Diana and myriads of other South-East (South-ish) Asian Kids channel with their weird English pronunciation, intonation and cringe content. Our children speak English fluently from whatever they can catch but only from the surface. This adversely affects them if they learn other new languages which involves a lot of translation. Once, I successfully translated a Hindi word into English, but my CBSE student didn’t understand it. So, I translated it into Khasi, but the child still doesn’t understand. This is the reality of Gen Alpha learners.
The inspiration for the second activity came from a personal experience. Militarily disciplined by a veteran media man, from books to almirah shelves, Kongbih’s wooden walls and even our ‘Syrwiang-Khiew Ja’ (vehicle-rings wrapped in paper where we keep hot rice/karhai pots in the kitchen) were wrapped with newspaper as we had plenty of it. I developed a habit of reading newspapers at an early age, which was then gradually lost with the onset of Nokia/Siemens keypad phones & SMS, Chinese I-pods, obnoxiously loud Chinese/Bangladeshi touch screen phones with fancy stylus, FB, smartphones and finally JIO Free 4G data.
I reclaimed this habit after a brief episode of enlightenment. Gen Alpha majorly reads only for passing. Why read storybooks when you can watch them on YouTube! Madam Editor had rightly nailed the issue of short-attention span amongst Gen Z and Gen Alpha. They have a peculiar way of learning too– some intently watch a Roblox/Minecraft Gameplay on YouTube Shorts with AI commentary about concepts or stories. In this digital age, we have too many distractions, which even adults struggle to cope with. Even my old man is glued to the screen; several times my sister had to intervene as he utters somniloquisms – probably responses to Arnab Goswami’s and Navika’s arguments.
Do the new generation read or watch anything substantive? The answer is Negative, NO CAP! Media Literacy can be introduced at a very young age and it does not have to be strictly professional. Newspapers serve as a good medium for students to improve their language skills too and learn about a lot of things. We have to be several steps ahead of the children. Of course we can’t force a child to read or expect them to understand GST Fraud or any of Bah Ardent’s arguments, but we can tweak their curiosity and play games.
I begged my mother to give tea to the newspaper boy so that he would deliver my doodle to Nongsain Hima’s office, then I would anxiously wait for Saturday. When a classmate uttered “I saw your drawing” on Monday, my chest would explode with pride. Showing a picture of the forever-young Information and Public Relations Department Minister, I asked, “Don’t you want to know who this is? If anything happens to our school, she will be the first one to help us!” The very next day, they came up with a ST DIPR news ad “DOCTOR MAZEL AMPAREEN LYNGDOH.” Some still looked clueless. In the same manner, “PM Modi is shaking hands with whom?” “What is the full form of KSU/USTM?” “Search the meaning of the words- Current/Affairs/Political in your Oxfords and Cambridges” – GAME ON!
Like sugar is to our body, new-digital media content is highly addictive to our brains. To wean the new generation from clickbaits, SKIBIDI content and long exposures to the screen, we have to cut this sugary dependence by catching and guiding them while they are young, in our fortress. They are highly skilled in tech, super-duper fast learners, sensitive, creative and DANK problem solvers. They are vocal at times, with no-filters. All they need is our support and guidance, not our “Once upon a time, I… Oh I!… had to walk 30 Kms to school… up and down up and down… DAILY!!”
(The title of the article are ingredients that Professor Utonium used to create the perfect little girls in an experiment, but he accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction which led to the accidental creation of the super POWERPUFF GIRLS – BLOSSOM, BUBBLES AND BUTTERCUP)