Rural teachers quietly lead foreign language learning for students' future

Time of India

9 hours ago

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Pune: Chaukool, a remote village in Sawantwadi taluka of Sindhudurg district with some 30 houses, has barely any cellphone network. But its Marathi-medium zilla parishad school where teacher Javed Tamboli is redefining what's possible to retain students is a shining example.
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Tamboli has come up with something unique to draw more students to the school. Over the years, he has watched their enrolment in Marathi schools falling as parents opt for English-medium institutions.
Rather than surrender, he decided to innovate. As part of a 'Joyful Saturday' initiative, he introduced his students to German. In classrooms surrounded by forests and farms, one can now hear 'Ich liebe Deutsch!" (I love German).
The teacher said, "I wanted learning to be more than just textbooks. When children learn something new, something different like German, they are excited. It brings joy and joy brings curiosity."
Maharashtra govt faced public outrage over its now-retracted decision to make Hindi a compulsory third language from Std 1. But a quiet change is underway in village classrooms led not by bureaucrats, but by rural schoolteachers with bold visions.
Far from the echo chambers of policy debates, teachers in zilla parishad (ZP) schools — often under-resourced and overlooked — are helping their students learn not just Hindi or English, but Japanese and German. Their mission isn't guided by mandates, but by imagination, inspiration, and the belief that rural children deserve global opportunities too.
Clarroooms in Vadona village in Aurangabad district are filled not only with the sounds of Marathi or English, but also the crisp syllables of Japanese.
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For two years now, teacher Sunita Lahane Dhoke has been teaching basic Japanese to students from Std I to V. "They practice the hiragana script daily," she said, proudly flipping through notebooks filled with neat Japanese characters.
"This isn't in the school syllabus. But when we learned that the New Education Policy 2020 gives importance to foreign languages, I thought why not? When students were learning online during the pandemic, they came across Japan's advances.
That sparked their curiosity. If they can learn Japanese, they can learn anything," she added.
Nine-year-old Tanvi wants to visit Japan one day and make robots. She beamed as she recited a basic greeting in Japanese: "Konnichiwa, watashi wa Tanvi desu."
In Umrad Khalsa, a small village in Beed district, German classes are now part of the weekly routine at the local ZP school. The initiative began when Kedar Jadhav, a local youth who worked in Germany, began teaching students online in November 2022.
"These children have only known Marathi, Hindi, and some English. But they took to German with surprising enthusiasm. Some are now able to hold basic conversations," Jadhav said.
The students, inspired by dreams of working abroad, are dedicated. "Ich will nach Deutschland reisen. (I want to go to Germany) I want to work with machines," said 11-year-old Rahul Jaydev.
In drought-prone Man taluka of Satara, teacher Balaji Jadhav has launched what might be the most ambitious grassroots language programme in the state — teaching Japanese to over 40 students from Std I to IV in Vijaynagar.
"In rural areas, students often miss out on global opportunities due to language barriers. I want to change that, starting from the roots," Jadhav said.
Today, his students can not only write and read Japanese but also solve maths problems and hold basic conversations in the language. "When parents hear their children speak Japanese, they are taken aback and proud," Jadhav added.
Tamboli and Jadhav took the effort to learn German and Japanese through online platforms. Jadhav subscribed to YouTube videos and has learnt the language, taken tests and gained proficiency in Japanese.