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Hello! Speak English

The class starts without a blackboard, chalk or a classroom. The master dictates from Kochi and the student listens sitting in his/her house in a different town, perhaps. One may think of teleconferencing perhaps. No, it is not. The master is teachin g spoken English, over the phone! And the master may be taking his morning walk or sitting in his drawing room, when he is teaching! Getting curious about it all? The mobile phone comes in handy for very many things, including teaching English.

Sali Thomas, 46, says he has been conducting English speaking and fluency classes over the phone from Vypeen Island, Kochi for the last five years. His experience?

Sali has taught English at various tutorial colleges, spoken English institutions and a school in the suburbs of Mumbai. He also ran such an institution named ‘Clutch’ in Vypeen. And wait, he has not even seen some of his students!

His teaching module is simple, sans frills. Those who join the course have to ring his cell phone at the time allotted. He gives grammar tips starting from the Tenses. It starts with simple sentences. After 10-15 sentences, he asks the student to write similar sentences by changing subject, verb, object etc. Then he hangs up. After a stipulated time the student has to ring back with the answers. He corrects them and moves on to the negative formation of the earlier sentences. The fluency aspects come at a later stage, perhaps with the narration of the story of a movie, which the student has seen.

Sali attends calls from students except while travelling in a bus. “It creates noise and fellow passengers will be disturbed while dictating”, he explains. In the one-hour class, the telephonic conversation does not exceed 15-20 minutes. During the rest of the time, the students have to do the exercises.

There is no prescribed syllabus for study. The English class starts with tenses. What about his qualifications? Sali Thomas is a post graduate in Philosophy. His students come from different strata of society: Salespersons, businesspersons, housewives who want to maintain secrecy about their studies.

Sali charges Rs.6, 000 per head for 60 hours of coaching, over a period of three months. The students have to bear the telephone charges, as they have to ring the master and not vice-versa. There are no study materials, guides or tapes. An advance of Rs. 3,000 has to be paid before classes begin, to his banking account via the Net. “I have not seen majority of my students in person as they remit fee through their bank branches into my account,” he says. Why such a high fee? “Because it is personalised coaching,” he retorts. And how does he get his students? He places advertisements in local papers with his phone number and his intentions.

Sali admits that there are not many takers for his brand of classes over the phone. He has so far had 50 students. There are people calling to test his calibre.

Some ring to ridicule, others ring due to curiosity. But Sali confidently goes on, earning his bread through the mobile phone.

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