Nishant Bidichandani has been a core team member of Pune Learns from the very beginning, and has made huge contributions for all our public speaking related initiatives. Most recently, he has spearheaded the Empowered Communication Program, aimed at adult students with an English proficiency somewhere between very basic and native fluency. Read on to get a glimpse of his experience crafting a program for adults making the transition into the professional world!
Our purpose at Pune Learns is fairly straight-forward: to teach the English language to any child looking to learn. We don’t seek perfection – in fact, we couldn’t even if we tried. We instill pride in the attempt – “it’s okay if you couldn’t find the right word, or were grammatically incorrect”, we say. It’s important to celebrate languages known or learnt, irrespective of how incomplete that knowledge may be. And at Pune Learns, we attempt to provide platforms to work on these imperfections. The goal is effective, not perfect, communication.
The COVID-19 imposed lockdown allowed us to collaborate with a cohort of students we never intended to: adults. This August, we digitally launched the 8-week ‘Empowered Communication Program’, in association with Pune City Connect (PCC). PCC is a Pune-based nonprofit organization with over 3,000 students under its umbrella and an agenda of improving Pune’s digital literacy. Their primary goal is to enable 100% digital empowerment in Pune, i.e. that at least one person in every low-income household in Pune must be able to leverage the internet to improve quality of life. Since we had gone digital ourselves in the aftermath of a mishap involving a bat, Pune Learns seemed to fit into this agenda perfectly (funny how things work out sometimes). We were approached to use their digital empowerment platform and teach their students effective communication in the English language.
We had, for our pilot program, 16 students who believed that an increased exposure to an English-speaking environment would benefit them. These were adults who could read, write and speak the language– but could not communicate as confidently. We quickly realized that this would be wholly different from our regular classes. They didn’t need all the information – just the right amount of it. But most importantly, they needed the right ecosystem to help enhance what they already knew.
What resulted (through an iterative process involving surveys and perpetual discussions) was an extremely targeted course with specific modules – we focused on their resumes, interview skills, public speaking and social interaction – and believe that these lessons left a mark. We were constantly reminded that, unlike our regular students, these required a need-based curriculum which could be impactful from day zero. A final, somewhat crude, difference: these weren’t children (yes, we observe). You couldn’t encourage participation with games or songs. There were certain shackles that needed breaking (children are freer, aren’t they?) – we can allow our facilitators to take credit for this one.
At Pune Learns, we believe that this experience has opened a whole new avenue to explore. While we’re moderately satisfied with our results, it’s simply not enough. We cannot plan a sixteen-hour course, provide a platform and consider our jobs done. As an immediate next step, we recognize the need to keep this stage wide-open for our students. We’re working towards a buddy program (I could do with some more friends in all honesty), wherein we continue weekly interactions with our students in English – be it through debates, discussions or articles. A lot of the skills that we have laid the groundwork for cannot be taught in two months – or even years, perhaps. They need ceaseless work and sustained diligence. Our goal is to enable efficient communication through repetition, and practice. We want our students to be comfortable, and confident, in their own skins as they speak the language – no matter how far from ideal the grammar may be. Like I said – at Pune Learns, we couldn’t care less for perfection.
A huge shout-out to our specialized facilitators – Anoushka, Mustafa, Ramya, Farhan, Neelam, Siddhant, Tazeen and Neha – for the tremendous effort that they put into this program.
– Written by Nishant Bidichandani
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