How this blog happened...

Connecting the dots...

There was a time in my life when I wanted to get a job as a tutor at a private institute to begin my career as a trainer/tutor/educator. I happened to see an advertisement of a reputed institute which was looking for Spoken English tutors. After going through the advt. I realised that I had little chance as they were looking for a well qualified/experienced candidate.

But I wanted to work there at any cost as I thought that this would help me to get the right understanding, experience and knowledge of this field of English Communication Training. During that time this was the only institute working in this field and the people running it had a very good reputation, experience and credentials. But the question which I kept asking myself was: How to get a job there as a trainer?

So while I was sitting one day in my study room I thought of writing a letter to the Managing Director of the Spoken English Institute, in a conversational format. I imagined in that letter that I had been invited for an interview for the post of a tutor-trainer and I was talking to the MD. I wrote the imaginary script of the conversation and posted it. After a few days I got a reply asking me to meet the undersigned. Thus began my career as a Spoken English tutor.

An incident that Transformed me.

 

After working as a Spoken English Tutor for a long time I decided to take a break and joined a school in Tirur as a teacher in the same subject. I had to reach the place by catching a train in the early morning. It required me to get ready by 6 am, catch a bus to the city, then walk a few minutes to the railway station and from there board a train, a hectic routine in all ways. After a few months I got an offer from a company which was into training students for competitive exams like CAT, MAT, GRE etc. I was not very keen to join since I had agreed to be in the school job for the full academic year. Besides I enjoyed the whole experience of commuting by train, the vibrant school atmosphere, the dynamic extra-curricular activities etc.

It was then that accident happened. Once while making it to the morning train to reach the school I fell from another train stationed there and fractured my left hand. What was amazing was that I got sorrounded by a horde of commuters all enquiring and looking concerned about my plight. I took a two months leave which led to the termination of my school job and the beginning of another experience as a faculty for CAT/MAT/GRE exams. It was like destiny helping me to get this new job which looked very daunting in the beginning. But as the days passed I experienced a lot of creative satisfaction while interacting with the IIM aspirants.

A small class that gave me the Insight.

It was a summer vacation when I got a call from a computer institute asking me if I could take a vacation batch in Spoken English for a few school students. I accepted the offer and went to take my first class. But the class was not exactly like what I had imagined. There were just four students and they were not serious learners either. I started with the basic rules to make English sentences and asked them to write these rules seeing the board. They made a lot of spelling mistakes even while copying things from the board. 

This made me worried and I started thinking about what their parents would think if they were to check their notebooks. Then I remembered that all these students had told me that they had computers at home having access to the Internet. This was the moment that led to the thought of making a blog having all the rules of making simple English sentences for these playful kids. I was thus freed of my worries of  how to make them write well as they could always see the blog from home and correct their mistakes if any. This experience led to the making of this blog.

A REAL conversation that made things easy.  

Once while walking to the bus stop after my work I happened to notice the office premises of the New Indian Express Newspaper. I just felt like having a meeting/discussion with the editor on the idea of using blogs for educational purposes.

The conversation was positive and creative and subsequently he asked me to meet their reporter. After a few days I got a call from them saying that the Express reporter and photographer are going to pay me a visit. They came in the afternoon and did a small interview which got published in their newspaper after a week. This made the blog known to people around me. Even now sometimes I am asked questions about this blog. 

 
TO BE CONTINUED...