Young India Fellowship student begins The Wordsworth Project to make English easy and comprehensible for kids
What better name than ‘Wordsworth’ would befit an English language project for improving linguistic comprehension and learning? An idea conceptualised by Varsha Varghese, an economics major of St Stephen’s College, Delhi, The Wordsworth Project was established in October 2014. Currently, pursuing her postgraduate diploma in Liberal Studies and Leadership at the Young India Fellowship, Varsha says, “I’ve always been a voracious reader and most of my pocket money would be spent on buying books.”
Varsha came to Delhi for her graduation after having finished her schooling from Dubai. “I was the only child and I lived quite a privileged and sheltered life. I had started yearning for a creation of my own identity. While my family is originally from Kerala, my identity with the region was connected only to the language. Also, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), you don’t get citizenship, so families either migrate to other countries or come back to India. I felt it was the perfect time to come back, so I consciously decided to come back to India,” says Varsha.
Talking about the changes she’d experienced after her move to India, Varsha says, “While I studied in a very good school in Dubai, the level of motivation here is much higher. Life was very comfortable and I rarely felt challenged.
“During my school years, I was smart and was also the President of the Student Council, and felt that it was a good achievement. However, after coming here, I saw everyone had some achievement or the other and everyone is really smart. So it was a humbling experience. These three years and more in Delhi have really helped me evolve and grow as an individual.”
During her first year in college, Varsha realised that economics was not something she was very keen on. “I realised that I lacked corporate aspirations,” says Varsha. It was during this time that Varsha realised she wanted to make some difference and joined ‘Make a Difference’ (MAD) as a teaching volunteer. By the time she reached her second and third year in college, she had started training their new volunteers. She had also begun running their English project, where she primarily would teach kids English over the weekend.
“It was then I realised that teaching was something I felt strongly about, and my experience in MAD was something that I cherished. There were times when I would train and work with volunteers who were older than me; suddenly age just didn’t matter. The time was truly a defining moment in my life,” says Varsha.With time, Varsha realised that when she was teaching in a classroom for a few hours, you don’t get to make the required impact in the lives of the kids. It was during this time that she began thinking: “What is the one thing I can do to make a big impact and a much bigger difference?”
While each one finds his or her own answer, for Varsha it was language. For her, the idea was simple every subject you learn is through the medium of language. She says that if “you’re in the fourth standard and are good in maths, but not good in English, you might find it difficult to solve your statement problems. Many kids just go about memorising stuff without understanding the meaning, because they’re unable to comprehend the words.”
Language and words being her biggest strengths, Varsha found the thought of children struggling with those very words difficult to digest. “I just thought something needs to be done about this situation. I felt that the impact of language was much stronger than the language itself,” says Varsha. Speaking of why she chose English, Varsha says, “In most places English language is used, and I also saw that even families from low-income backgrounds would put their kids in an English-medium school. They would do this with a hope and belief that this would give their children better opportunities in life. So you have a bunch of kids who are forced to interact in a strange alien language only while restricted to the four walls of the classroom. They would go back home and begin interacting in their mother tongue again, so the comprehension they had of English was very limited.”
Apart from this, Varsha also felt very strongly about books that were given in charity drives. In many cases, the books that are given in the libraries do not match the interest levels of the children, so it was important to hand-pick books that suited the level of the children. “There are several low-cost interventions in place, where you get great books for Rs 40 only. So I had a very rough idea in mind, and my experience in MAD also taught me that lot of college students need such an opportunity and cause for volunteering. I thought I would do this much later in life, when I can take the time off from work,” says Varsha.
However in Young India Fellowship, she got an opportunity to engage in a project that can either be a profit-making one or one with a social cause. “You need to pitch the idea and theme. And you need a team of minimum three people. So liking the idea of planning and creating the processes, I chalked out the plan, what age groups I would look at and every other detail. Soon Priyanka joined as well; she too had just graduated from Lady Shri Ram College. She had experimented with the library model and it did not work as per her expectations, so she joined me. Another person to join was Rahul, who had one year of work experience and had a strong volunteer background at an old age home. So Rahul decided to take over the logistics and operations, while Priyanka and I focused on the conceptualisation and ideation,” says Varsha.
Soon the trio began looking for spaces to tie up with. They closed in on Kutumbh Foundations in Delhi and two community centres that were run by ex-Teach for India fellows. In October 2014, they began their work. “I started with accessing the kids, as I wanted to ensure that they get the right books. What happens in volunteer run programme is that the volunteer comes in for a couple of hours, does his or her job and goes. Getting them to document things is really difficult. So I ensured all the details had to be in place. We first began with a reading test with ‘Peter Rabbit.’ It was both sad and scary that children couldn’t comprehend the basic English there. They had little association with the vernacular word when juxtaposed to the English word. So I made it a point to take in extremely simple books and stories that were rich in context so that it’s easier teaching the kids,” says Varsha.
Elaborating further, Varsha says, “Most kids even when they knew basic words and could answer grammar questions with reasonable accuracy had a lot of difficulty stringing sentences together with coherent meanings.” In the Wordsworth Project, most of the processes revolve around assessing and testing the progress of a child. “Volunteers on a regular basis answer ‘Yes or No’ to questions like ‘Did the child read quietly during the reading time?’ or ‘Does this child actively participate in class?’ Then, we have predefined 0-5 scales to score assessments to minimise personal volunteer bias,” adds Varsha.
Speaking of her personal plans, Varsha says, “I’m looking at a year or two working with an organisation in the education space in Delhi, so that I can be around for the scaling of the WordsWorth project. I would eventually like to get a Master’s in Education (in the project management track). In my ideal world, I combine my love for travelling, writing and running a project in the education space.”
Talking about The Wordsworth Project, Varsha says:
“In terms of growth, couple of things would be: 1. To be financially sustainable by finding at least a few continuous income streams, say grants or recurring donors. 2. Growth in depth and scale. To work both on improving existing processes, building resources and at the same time scaling to more centres and regions. 3. To eventually build a detailed starter kit with instructions on processes in a way that anyone passionate about the idea can begin aWordsWorth Project in their town. “