Hi everyone!
Rosie here. It's been a busy few weeks at ACCM in Areeparambu, and we've managed to squeeze in some exciting trips at the weekends so lots to tell. We began our full time teaching last week, so are getting into the swing of things. The main jobs we have been asked to do cover the theory/history/aural parts of the course. It is a really small college and we only have 6 pupils (so far 0 admissions are still going on, despite the fact that we are teaching!), but end up teaching most of them separately because they have a wide range of abilities. I've been taking group history classes, which has been really fun beacuse I can choose pretty much anything I want to teach them! They all have almost no Western musical context, and I quickly worked out from the first lesson that they had never properly listened to a piece of Western music, so I'm spending a lot of time playing them music. They're learning fairly quickly, and seem to really enjoy actually hearing what they're learning about (so far, the Baroque). I'm also taking a third year aural class and theory for all years. We were told this week that we also write the exams that they take for these modules, which is a big responsibility! These lessons have taken up a lot of our time, so we haven't had much time for piano lessons so far, although we should have more next week. We will also be teaching more piano when we travel to Trivandrum the weekend after next to teach in the Centre of the Development of Music Studies (CDMS). This is a school, up to age 18, so it will be great trying our hand at teaching younger children. We have lots of opportunities here to introduce masterclasses and workshops, and next week we are hoping to give a conducting workshop to the older students.
We had an amazing time last weekend when we took a 4 hour bus journey through the mountains to Kumily, and spent a whole day in Periyar Wildlife Reserve doing a safari and rainforest trek! We're still having lots of fun spending time at the children's home every evening, and have found a fair exchange - we teach them songs and they teach us Malayalam.
Rebecca has created a facebook page (WAM 2013) where we can share our photos and non-work related stories! Will update this blog soon.
Rosie
Rosie here. It's been a busy few weeks at ACCM in Areeparambu, and we've managed to squeeze in some exciting trips at the weekends so lots to tell. We began our full time teaching last week, so are getting into the swing of things. The main jobs we have been asked to do cover the theory/history/aural parts of the course. It is a really small college and we only have 6 pupils (so far 0 admissions are still going on, despite the fact that we are teaching!), but end up teaching most of them separately because they have a wide range of abilities. I've been taking group history classes, which has been really fun beacuse I can choose pretty much anything I want to teach them! They all have almost no Western musical context, and I quickly worked out from the first lesson that they had never properly listened to a piece of Western music, so I'm spending a lot of time playing them music. They're learning fairly quickly, and seem to really enjoy actually hearing what they're learning about (so far, the Baroque). I'm also taking a third year aural class and theory for all years. We were told this week that we also write the exams that they take for these modules, which is a big responsibility! These lessons have taken up a lot of our time, so we haven't had much time for piano lessons so far, although we should have more next week. We will also be teaching more piano when we travel to Trivandrum the weekend after next to teach in the Centre of the Development of Music Studies (CDMS). This is a school, up to age 18, so it will be great trying our hand at teaching younger children. We have lots of opportunities here to introduce masterclasses and workshops, and next week we are hoping to give a conducting workshop to the older students.
We had an amazing time last weekend when we took a 4 hour bus journey through the mountains to Kumily, and spent a whole day in Periyar Wildlife Reserve doing a safari and rainforest trek! We're still having lots of fun spending time at the children's home every evening, and have found a fair exchange - we teach them songs and they teach us Malayalam.
Rebecca has created a facebook page (WAM 2013) where we can share our photos and non-work related stories! Will update this blog soon.
Rosie
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