Herts Tamil School has always taken pride in being an agile institution that listens to the community feedback to improve it’s services. Based on a recent observation regarding the ability of the pupils to listen and speak Tamil, an innovative approach has been adopted to encourage the pupils to practice their listening and speaking skills.
Over the past few weeks, pupils have been introduced to an interactive Tamil class. The pupils were huddled around an electronics kit and were given instructions written in Tamil on how to make simple electronic circuits using the kit. The challenge as a team was to be able to read the instructions and understand them. Inevitably, this prompted them to ask questions with the teacher about certain words they were not familiar with.
The role of the teacher was to facilitate their collaboration, reminding them to speak in Tamil all along. They also nudged the pupils to use colloquial words when talking to each other, instead of the complicated alternative that the pupils normally encounter in their curriculum book. This boosted their confidence and many pupils put effort in trying to speak in Tamil.
The benefits of such a unique and innovative teaching are many folds:
- Sustain the interest of the pupils
- Cross-curriculum education
- Build confidence amongst pupils
- Foster critical thinking
- Improve vocabulary that is reflective of real life situations
The future looks promising for the academics in Herts Tamil School. Lots of custom materials are being prepared by the teachers that imbibe the above cross-curricular principles. Examples of such materials include quizzes based on current affair articles written in Tamil, mini-projects like kite-building, role-playing dramas.
தாமின் புறுவது உலகின் புறக்கண்டு
– kural 399
காமுறுவர் கற்றறிந் தார்
The learned will long (for more learning), when they see that while it gives pleasure to themselves, the world also derives pleasure from it.
Herts Tamil School, Watford, UK 
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