“LEGENDS, ALL”!! – By Des Kelly

               “THESE ARE ALL LEGENDS, 

             AND, IT IS THEIR WISH, 

       TO TEACH RURAL CHILDREN,

          SOME CORRECT ENGLISH. 

        WE CONGRATULATE THEM, 

            EACH ONE, AND ALL, 

       HOPE THAT YOUR STUDENTS, 

             WILL ALL HAVE A BALL”. 

 Desmond Kelly.
(Editor-in-Chief)  eLanka. 

Legends give up leisure time to help rural kids improve spoken English skills 

Source:FT

Some of the brightest kids in the land who succeed at the all island scholarship exams and gain entry to the leading Government schools in Colombo sadly lack good English speaking skills.

Padmasena Dissanayake (Class of 64 and the Olive Group at Royal College) has long pushed the barrow for bilingual education at Royal and he identified the smart rural kids who entered his alma mater seriously lacking in English speaking skills. In fact it became their nemesis in higher level examinations and job selection after they completed their education.

His lament was heard as far away as Melbourne, Australia by philanthropist and project manager extraordinaire, Nihal de Run (class of 57 at RC) who responded to his call and came up with an ingenious idea of recruiting retired and semi-retired professionals in Australia, UK and USA who were willing to give up an hour a week of their leisure time to tutor the year 9 boys at the Royal College Hostel in spoken English skills.

Nihal reached out to old Royalists, their family members and friends to consider the proposal. All they needed to have was a mobile phone, an iPad or a small computer and access to Zoom software. The students already have this as they are working on line from their homes due to the school closures and therefore the school hostel too.

Since launching the plan under the title project ‘Search (Spoken English At Royal College Hostel)’ only as recently as July, 30 tutors have been recruited and allocated to tutor two students each.

Among the tutors are cricketing legends of Royal, Mike Wille who captained Royal in 1958 and scored a century at the big match, Lorenz Pereira who was a cricket captain, rugby and athletics champion at Royal in the late fifties, Darrell Lieversz, the outstanding track athlete in the 50s, and Sadha Ranasinghe, another track athlete of the 50s.

Others of note are former Army man Lt. Col. (Retd.) P.V.J. de Silva and Rear Admiral (Retd.) Lakshman Obeysinghe of the Sri Lankan Navy.

Nihal and Dissa are particularly impressed by the number of ‘ladies of Royal’ who have joined the project as tutors including former teachers and educationists in Sri Lanka and overseas.

Royal College Acting Principal Samantha Gunatileke and Hostel Acting Warden Janaka Jayasinghe are fully supportive of the project and asked that it be extended to the boys moving into Grade 10 next year and for the program to continue with the next intake of Grade 9s.

The response from the parents of these rural students has been overwhelming thus far. They are grateful that someone is taking an interest in their children and aiming to help them in the only subject that stops them from scoring the highest marks at their exams.

Dissa works tirelessly in qualifying each and every student and their parents, before introducing the students to the tutors.

Nihal works tirelessly in recruiting the tutors. He says his aim is to have 50 tutors by the end of September so that the estimated 100 students across Grade 9 and 10 in 2022 will each have a tutor.

A tutorial aid in the form of a Basic English textbook has been developed by another old Royalist domiciled in Perth, Australia. Reference is also made to the National Institute of Education website where the syllabus and the textbooks are found.

The project plans to include English elocution for the students who progress in Grade 10.

It is a costless project although the students must have functioning devices with software downloaded. They all have this for the other online education needs. They also need to keep their phones topped up and data paid for on the Wi-Fi services. Where there is financial difficulty Dissa and Nihal will provide relief.

One of the only problems that tutors and students confront very often is connectivity. Signal failures and power cuts do not help the momentum of this noble project.

There is a need for more tutors so Nihal and Dissa would welcome inquiries to nihal@derun.net.au or scholorshipsforusa@gmail.com.

It is hoped that this idea is embraced by other schools to help students in those schools to further their speaking skills which in the long run will not only benefit the students but also the nation.