CHENNAI: `Lucky was she, for some roti she saw, Being made by a granny, on a sunny verandah ... '

The children were thoroughly enjoying the story of the foolish crow in class five of the Panchayat Union School in Madambakkam.

They had completed one year of the `Karadi Path' programme, an approach conceptualised by The Karadi Cultural Alliance Trust. The programme, aimed at improving rural schoolchildren's functional proficiency in English, has been adopted by 27 schools in Chennai, Kancheepuram and Villivakkam.

To mark the completion of a year, the Karadi Tales team took actor Nasser to a couple of schools that were part of the project. Mr. Nasser lent his voice for the bear that narrates the story in the audio track of the Tamil version.

While the audio track is played, children look into their Karadi Tale book and read the text, printed both in English and Tamil. This way, they become familiar with English words and gradually build a vocabulary, quite unconsciously. "A one-year-old picks up his or her mother tongue without any reference language. The child simply absorbs from the environment in course of time. We have used the same concept in this bilingual approach," said C.P. Viswanath, Director, Karadi Tales.

Since the programme is in its experimental stage, the schools have allocated around 100 classes for it, outside the curriculum. "We have these classes twice a week. Children enjoy the reading sessions so much that they start singing with the audio track. We have had about 50 classes now and most of them read very fast now," said S. Sargunam, primary class teacher.

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