The warmth that I was feeling on the day COP in Russian exams finished is no more there. The enthusiasm in which I decided to write a detailed post about the course and students is a thing of past. What remains is a feeling of moral responsibility to keep the promise I made to myself. As it is constantly pressing me to write, here I am generalizing my experiences while teaching COP students in this semester.
We started 2nd semester with 9 students out of 20+ students initially enrolled for the course. Only 10 of them actually appeared for 1st semester final exam. They all passed and enrolled for 2nd semester except Zakhriya. Hence we were 9 left to continue with. It was not a bad number as I have the experience of doing COP in Delhi University, where almost every year 100+ students enroll for COP only to be left not more than 20 by the end of the course. Drop out ratio in any part time course is always very high.
I would like to start with Irfaan and Ishrath, two brothers who are truly interested in learning Russian but are unable to make it a reality. The moment they start working hard and show some improvement something happens and they are forced to move away. Sometimes it was their own mainstream subjects which disturbed and then it was a sudden untoward and unfortunate happening in his family. I respect and appreciate their zeal for learning Russian and have a soft corner in my heart for them. Despite all the obstacles they still give importance to Russian. They preserved their passion for learning Russian, are willing to continue and believe that they will improve.
Narsimlu, Abinaya and Vasudha (NAV) continue to be the best in the class. They are the most regular students with attendance percentage of 90, 87 and 77 respectively. Narsimlu is a hard-working student. He is the only student who had not let his initial enthusiasm drop down and is continuing to perform consistently. He is best in poem reciting and spoken Russian but a bit weak in grammar. Any teacher will love to have such student in his class. Abinaya is a serious and mature student. She loves literature. Ask her any time, "what you were doing last day?" and the answer will be “was reading one or the other literary works". She is a brilliant student who normally keeps quite in the class, who knows answer to all questions but, will not speak a single word unless asked. I feel that her interest level for Russian was not at par to what she had in the previous semester. This time she was not that good in poetry recitation. Then Vasudha: Being the youngest in the class (a 10+2 student) she has a fresh mind, she picks up every concept fast and is the best performer in the class. If you will not stop her, she will love to answer each and every question that you ask in the class, prompts other and smiles at wrong answers given by fellow students. She also falls in line with Abinaya as for as her performance in this semester is concerned. It reflects in her attendance. Here is the reason: she has decided to discontinue. She informed about it in the last class. It is justified as this is the time when she needs the most concentrated approach towards her career. Wish her all the best for her further studies.
Radhika and Jayashree: The two fall in the middle between the trio NAV and duo I&I. They did not improve but at the same did not let them self fall below average. The reason as I understand for Jayashree is her well developed family life. At 50 around age she must be having a lot of house hold responsibilities. She missed classes in the middle of semester but surprisingly performed well in end-semester exams, almost at par with NAV. It seems that in last 15 days she studied seriously. In oral exam she confidently said that she will improve for sure. Radhika as I perceive is a busy working lady and so just 65% attendance in class. On most of the days she was 10-12 minutes late in the class. I understand she cannot give more time to Russian. More important for me as a teacher of Russian language is the fact that she is willing to continue studying the language. I must mention that she is the only student who said that my teaching was good. This is what any worker expects after finishing his job and naturally it made me feel good.
Now Satish: a good student but has lot of other things to do. He is appearing for different competitive exams. He is always busy travelling to appear for different interviews. He was about to drop the course in the middle but I convinced him to continue and appear for the final exams. There is nothing wrong in having a certificate otherwise it will all go in vain. Thank god he agreed to finish the course and as I expected he gave an average performance in exams and if all go right he will be able to finish the course successfully.
Finally Aziz: one year senior among all COP students. He is also doing Optional Russian course where we have finished 23 chapters. In COP the course was up to 14th lesson. He enjoys an advantage position but he is confused with unclear concepts of grammar. His reading is not good and he mixes the endings of one case with another. He wants to learn Russian but he is unable to materialize it. For him I think it is an issue of language competency.
Here I stop. That is all I am able to recollect. It was very nice to spend my first year of teaching with you. I will love to teach you again next year subject to you enroll for Diploma of Proficiency in Russian (DOP) and I am assigned to take the course. Soon the vacations are starting and I have already started preparing to go back to my parents, to my village. Wish you happy vacations.
