If you walk into the social welfare residential school at Parkal, you would find students reciting the entire periodic table or a bunch of Telugu poems at one go, without batting an eyelid. Surprised? It is all thanks to K. Raghu, a private school teacher, who has been employing novel teaching methods to help the SC and ST students here learn and memorise their lessons in a more effective manner.
He can name the capitals and currency of all countries among several other things. He also knows 11 Indian languages that he taught himself through a 16-step chart he had designed. The chart includes commonly used words such as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’, ‘they’, ‘he’, ‘she’, etc., which, he says, once mastered gives reasonable command over a particular language. “People who laughed at me in the past are now asking for my help. These techniques are tested,” explains Mr. Raghu.
But instead of gloating over the fact that he is a memory wizard, he has been imparting freelance memory skill training classes to the less privileged students.“The basic problem that the students in rural areas face is the fear of English. My aim is to drive away that fear,” says Mr. Raghu. It was Parkal town inspector of police J. Narasimhulu who spotted the work of Mr. Raghu and took him to the social welfare residential school to teach the poor students using his unique memory tricks and techniques. “After eight classes, the students are able to recite the periodic table, tenses and Telugu poems with great ease,” says Mr. Narasimhulu.
For Mr. Raghu, music, mostly the Kedari raga, is an effective teaching technique. Through that, he teaches 12 tenses of English at one go. According to him, rhythm and repetition helps students learn better.
