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Wow! What's that sound? - A 5 Minute Teaser

Wow! What's that sound? - A 5 minute teaser from Kirsten Anderson on Vimeo.

Behind the making of "Wow! What's that sound?"

In addition to interviews with the child artists, entertaining video snippets, bloopers and behind the scenes outtakes, this short documentary provides context into the reasons behind why we made "Wow! What's that sound?". And why we are hoping to turn it into a 12 episode educational DVD series as soon as we secure additional funding.

You can also view the documentary on vimeo in full screen.

Screening and Release at Madras Terrace House

Niveditha, Priya, Kirsten and Sumangali enjoy some Bhel Puri
on the terrace before the event

On Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 Aid India released and screened the first pilot episode “Wow! What’s that sound?” of their 12-episode English language DVD series at the Madras Terrace House, Royapettah. The pilot episode demonstrates an innovative approach to teaching English to Tamil-medium students in the primary school age group.

Jon (of Xylopholks) and Vedanth perform melodious magic before the show

The evening commenced with a lively music performance by Vedanth, the music producer and Jonathan Singer, xylophonist. Dr. Balaji Sampath, Director of Aid India delivered an inspirational talk on the role of education in bridging the growing economic divide and the importance of English in bringing about linguistic equality. This was followed by a brief presentation on ‘Between your desire and destiny there are DVDs’ by Mr. Robert Bellarmine, formerly of the British Council and currently Director of English for Empowerment and Enrichment.

A packed house--standing room only!

A documentary on the making of the DVD was then played, followed by a speech by Mr. Ravikumar, MLA, activist and author. Mr. Ravikumar also released the pilot episode and distributed DVDs to the child stars.

Ms. Vasanthi Devi and Mr. Ravikumar release the pilot episode of the DVD

During the screening of the pilot episode, the guests were delighted to watch the children’s lively engagement with the video. Ms. Vasanthi Devi, President of Aid India and former Chairperson, Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women remarked that the storyline was engaging, while also doing the job of an educational English lesson.

In addition to our guest speakers listed below, other participants included the child stars from Chennai and Koovathur and their families, the producers, directors, the cast, and NGOs, foundations & companies involved in education initiatives.

Ranga the Rowdy Rabbit was on display in the lobby.

Some of the caps and the props from the pilot episode were also on display.

DVD Update #6: Pilot Episode Release & Screening

DVD Update #6 Release & Screening Event

Aid India’s DVD Release and Screening of

“Wow! What’s that sound?”

Please join us for the official release of the first episode of our new educational English DVD series for the children of Tamil Nadu!

Date: Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Time: 7pm-9pm
Place: Madras Terrace House
15, Sri Puram 2nd Street,
Off R.K. Salai, Near Deccan Plaza Hotel,
Royapettah, Chennai 600 014
Ph: 044-4503-8391

Initial Evaluation Results

Initial evaluation has been completed for methodology-applied classes in almost all 36 schools consisting of approximately 2000 students, however evaluation data has only been received from 27 schools consisting of 1,351 students (10% were absent) and 12 control group schools with 334 students (3% were absent). We are still waiting the evaluation results for approximately 600 students in schools who have recently started the program.

As indicated by the results of the evaluation (see Table below), 87% of children are at least able to read letters whereas only 39% of children are able to read at least words, which appear in the third grade government textbooks. However, only 15% of students were able to read at the sentence level. Even more shocking, only 3% of the control group students could manage at the sentence level. This discrepancy may be because the control group evaluations were completed in different districts in the state. These numbers are much lower than we estimated at the time of writing our grant proposal. Therefore, ensuring 80% of children attending our methodology-applied classes will be able to read sentences may prove challenging, as only 11-39% can read individual words. This goal needs to be re-evaluated. Perhaps achieving 80% at the word level and 65% at the sentence level will be a more realistic intended outcome.

Chennai ELCs Training #2

Last Thursday and Friday we held a training at the Chennai Block office for all the Chennai BRPs (Block Resource Persons). The Chennai BRPs are all running Spoken + Reading English programs at their schools. Thursday was focused on training them on spoken English content. And on Friday we focused on reading content.

The morning was spent doing a pre-test, learning the new reading jingle and reviewing how to do an evaluation. In the afternoon we split them into beginner and advanced groups. Each group was responsible for teaching one week of content and two activities to the rest of the group.



After lunch we spent the afternoon acting as students in a classroom while groups presented their content and taught us activities. Everyone took their student role very seriously and created a challenging (but very life-like) environment for the teachers. It was a fun and engaging way of covering lots of material and trying out new activities. Nobody was tired even though we had just eaten a big lunch.

We were finally able to give all the Chennai BRPs flashcards, picture cards, para cards and the first draft of the bilingual teacher's manual. The student activity workbooks will be sent to them next week. It's finally starting to feel like a complete program.

DVD Update #5: Filming!

Going to the first day of the shoot
Uma Rani, Kirstne, Sumangali (back row), Swetha, January, Vignesh, Chandru (front row)

Day 1, Audio Recording 2pm-7pm

We picked up the students at noon and brought them to the office. The Koovathur kids had also arrived. I asked Swetha and Chandru to come and help me get lunch from a nearby hotel. Upon leaving the office I realized that Swetha didn’t have chappals. Apparently her chappals broke at the bus stand when she reached Chennai and so she was barefoot. So after putting in our order for lunch we went to a small chappal stall and bought her new chappals for 40Rs. For lunch we ate parrota and meals together in the office with all the staff. For most of the students it is their first time being around computers and in an office. They wanted to see everything and explore, but we had to keep an eye on them so they didn’t disturb the office too much. We finally left for the hall in two cars at about 2pm. The kids and their teacher all piled into the ambassador with Parvathy. Sumangali, Priya, Kalai and I all went in Suman’s car and followed the ambassador to the Goethe Institute, Max Mueller Bhavan. Walking into the studio for the first time was a little exciting for everyone. They had never been in a big studio space before. It is like big concrete hall, that had a a vinyl floor rolled out in the middle. The production crew had put up a backdrop for the set and blacked out the windows. For the first day on the set, the students mostly sat with the music technician and the actors and practiced the jingle and other tunes that will be used in the episode. They recorded their voices for the music--wearing big headphones and talking into a mic. Even though it was their first time performing, they didn't seem to have any stage fright. They all warmed up to it very quickly. Although it did take them some time to get all the tunes down...and the music technician will need to have to edit a lot to make some of their recordings useable, but they were very cute!

On the set waiting for the directors to say "Rolling, Action!"

Day 2, Shoot 7am to 7pm

I was up and at Brinda school by 6:30am to meet the two boys. Vignesh was there right on time and came alone, at least a 15 minute walk requiring crossing a very busy street. Chandru was 30 minutes late but came by his father’s auto. We went to the office and picked up the Koovathur girls, got in the taxi and went to Max Mueller Bhavan.

Today the students got to put on their costumes, make-up and stand on the set in front of the lights for the first time. Very exciting, but they soon realized it was also very exhausting and hot. We were able to run the air conditioning unit for the room when we weren't shooting, but it was too loud to use all the time, so the room got very warm after awhile. We were constantly rushing up on set with water bottles and biscuits to keep the kids energized. Nobody knew what to expect the first day of the shooting, but we all figured out very quickly that this was going to be a slow long process that involved a lot of waiting around. The production crew had to shift and adjust lights. The camera men had to find the right angles and the directors had to set the stage. And then we had to manage the kids and make sure they weren't going to tear down the sets.

A long day on the set in front of the lights. They did an amazing job staying energetic and enthusiastic all the way through.

Day 3, Shoot 7am-10pm

I had another sleepless night singing “A kite cap, a cone cap” and “Tommy is a tall tiger” in my fitfull sleep. These songs and the jingle are going to drive me crazy. I guess its good that they are catchy, but if I can't get them out of my head soon, I might go mad.

Vignesh met me at Brinda at 6:25. The car picked us all up at the office at 6:50. We arrived at MMB by 7am and had tea and biscuits. As soon as Sumangali and Parvathy arrived we started getting the kids ready—makeup and ironing costumes. The kids were on the set by 8am doing some filler shots of them playing near the caravan while the other actors got ready. Chandru had the best part—playing the drum attached to the caravan. Yesterday we only got about 25 minutes on film and needed much more, so today was going to be a LONG day...lots of scenes to cover in a very short time. We had had high hopes of finishing early, but ended up barely dragging the kids out of the studio at 10pm. Lots of lessons learned about time management! We will need to adjust our planning and schedules a lot for the rest of the episodes.

A week after the initial shoot, we went to the Koovathur school and shot some scenes outside.

Some hilarious moments on set:

• One student can NOT pronounce tub and it comes out as ‘dub’
• When the kids met the creature they were totally freaked out. But even before he put on his costume, they picked out who he was in the room without having any clues. He has long hair and hadn’t shaved. He kinda already looked like a creature.
  
• Watching kids record for the first time—big head phones on listening to the music without being able to hear their own voice. They were mumbling and off tune.
  
• One student kept adding “ing” to every phrase in the song. It took many many tries to get it right. She was saying things like: “Read booking” “Play gamesing”
• Street/folk dancing during cap song...the boys love it. This may be a hit song. They went wild when they heard it and couldn't stop dancing to it.
  
• Cultural bathroom issues. The kids had perhaps never been in a bathroom with toilets and no squat toilet before. The girls were squatting on a marble floor bathroom with a toilet. Luckily there was a drain in the floor and they were washing it with water, but still--inappropriate. We found an outside toilet behind the studio that was squat style so that we could avoid the issue.
  
• Chandru saying “cut” “take” and “action” before the directors. We had to remind him many times that it was not his job.
  
• Chandru using friendly verb forms with adults which is actually viewed as being very impolite. We had to have a talk with him about how and when to use polite forms of Tamil.
• Chandru needs a minder to sit with him, remind him every 2 minutes to be quiet. We may need to hire an assistant just to monitor him in the future.
  
• “Vignesh is a always a good boy” said by Vignesh after Gilli Gilli Valli said he was a good boy. He only talks in the third person.
  

The kids have become very serious actors very quickly. They remember their lines, know when and where to be and can change their personalities as soon as they hear the word "Rolling, Action!" But they have also started demaning A/c cars and will need to start wearing sunglasses to hide from the papparazzi. What have we created?

DVD Update #4: Photos on Flickr

An update regarding the DVD shoot will be posted soon, but in the meantime, you can view lots of pictures on flickr: Eureka Child.

DVD Update #3: Article in The Hindu

To see the complete article in The Hindu on October 7th, 2009, visit this link:
English fairy tale for students of Tamil-medium primary schools

DVD Update #2: Measurements & Rehearsal

All of our other pending projects have been pushed to the side this week. The pilot episode for the DVD is full speed ahead and there is lots that needs to be done. Thank goodness for a team of people: producers, costume designers, set designers, musical technicians, content people (us), actors, parents, teachers, and friends willing to give feedback, etc. This would never be possible without everyone enthusiastically working together on this project.

Last week we went to the school with a tailor and had the kids selected for the DVD measured. Cloth was bought and the tailor stitched them new DVD school uniforms. We choose bright fun colours: orange and purple. Sadly the tailor got the top and bottom confused and made the dark purple into shirts and blouses which will totally drown out the kids. We had asked for orange shirts and blouses. There needs to be a bright colour on top to offset their skin tones and hair colour. Deep purple will hide them entirely and we will only be able to see their teeth and the whites of their eyes on camera. Not acceptable! But we paid the tailor anyway. The producers are currently scouring the city for new lighter purple cloth and a tailor that can stitch 6 shirts in 24 hours.


Last week we meet with the parents of the students from the school in Chennai. We discussed the program and the logistics of the shoot. They all agreed and signed off on the permission slip. I am trying to keep in mind what I would be thinking and feeling if I were in their shoes...if I had been selected to act in a DVD in 4th or 5th grade, it might be the biggest thing that had ever happened to me. I wonder how something like this changes your life as a kid. Is it the biggest event to date for them? Considering movies are so popular here, giving kids an opportunity to act in front of a camera on a set is a pretty cool experience. As part of our side video project, the making of the DVD, we are going to do little video bios on each student when we drop them off at home this week.


Yesterday we had a 4 hour rehearsal with all six students and our main actor. She is great with children and they all seem to love her so it is working out perfectly from that perspective. She took them through several excercises and warm-ups to get them playing with their voice and facial expressions. And then she went through the first episode with them line by line. There was a lot of laughing and positive reaction to the script--Thank goodness! The kids seemed excited by the story line and picked up on the English very quickly. Only 3 of the students (all the girls) have been exposed to the program before. The boys haven't had any experience with the program so they are a little slower to pick it up, but tried really hard. Everyone had a good time. We ended the rehearsal with a parrota lunch and then managed to get all the kids home, earlier than expected.

Escorting them home was half the adventure yesterday. While we know that these kids come from disadvantaged backgrounds and live in slums, we never really see or experience the slums. Chennai has a few large slum areas, but most slums areas are hidden throughout the city down narrow lanes, hidden behind corners and blocked by walls or buildings. One turn off the main road and it is a different world. A world one wouldn't know exisited in Chennai unless you make an effort to find and see it for yourself. Yesterday I walked through two slum areas to drop off the kids after rehearsal. Being a foreigner there is obvious curiosity as to why I'm there. It's ok to see foreigners on the main roads, but there isn't any good reason why I should be walking through the slums otherwise. This was very clear in one area when the young men started calling out to me. As soon as we announced we were there with a student for a 'shoot for a school program' the attitude changed entirely. Not only was the student given slaps on the back (in congratulations), but we were shown straight to his house and everyone was instantly super helpful. It's all about relationships and establishing the right connections. We will be dropping him back again the rest of the week. It'll be interesting to see how their reaction to me and the others changes over time. But it'll be more interesting to see how he and the other students change over the days of the shooting. Will it increase their self-confidence? Will they display more pride? Will they step up to the acting role? Will they freeze up in front of the camera?

More after the shoot!

DVD Update #1

The DVD project is moving along very quickly! Last week we conducted auditions for the childrens parts in the DVD. We spent about 2 hours at a nearby school with about 20 children. Tarun & Anushka brought their camera to record the students for reference later. We played games with the kids. Sang songs. Asked them to play charades. Taught them some of our phonics sounds and actions. And generally encouraged them to be a little wild and crazy and have a good time. There were definitely some dominate characters that stood out.

Students singing in unison for camera close-ups.

Students playing a game in with the actress that will play our main 'teacher' character.

Students volunteering for charades.

We have selected the students, 3 boys and 3 girls. We will have four main speaking parts and two additional roles for activities and games. We are in the process of getting school and parent permission this week. We will hold rehearsals next Monday and shoot Wednesday-Friday and again the following Monday. Lots to be done this week: costumes, sets, and finalize the script and jingle. Fun fun fun!!

Back to Work

I've just returned from three weeks in the US. The primary justification for my trip was to renew my visa, but seeing family and friends was the real reason I wanted to go. It wasn't a particularly restful or re-energizing trip, but it was a very necessary break.

While I was home I was able to visit the Portland AID Chapter and give a presentation about the Ready 2 Read program. They have helped to fund the pilot episode of the DVD project, so it was fun to be able to meet the members face to face, talk about education in India, and generally share about the project both its successes and challenges.

I'm back in the office and trying to get caught up on emails. We are in the process of editing the script for the episode. We will have auditions with kids next week and have reserved a theater space to do our shoot near the end of the month. It's finally coming together. While there are still many details to sort out, it is an exciting process and I can't wait to see the final product.

Eureka Learning Center Training

Yesterday about 30 teachers from 8 districts in Tamil Nadu came to Chennai for Ready to Read program training. They will be each be teaching the program in Eureka Learning Centers in local government schools in their districts. We covered the first three weeks of content, activities, curriculum, and evaluation. While we still don't have all the materials to give to them, they each took a flip and blend book, sentence cards, sight word cards, the plastic polythene hangers fort he cards, copies of the flashcards and picture cards, the 1st week of the activity workbook, a list of activities and the evaluation tool. Many of them had already started the program and were able to give us some feedback. However, because they are all still new to the content, most of the feedback concetrated on classroom management and general teaching strategy. This will be something we need to cover more of in our subsequent training. More pictures from the training to follow.

Solution #2: Revising and Signing the DVD Contract

Anushka, Parvathy, Balaji and Tarun at the R2R DVD Pilot Contract Signing

Finally! We spent several weeks revising the contract and rethinking the project before making it official. The filmmakers have given us two concept notes to think about for the pilot. We will be meeting with them this week to go over more ideas before they get started on the script. Because the overall budget for this project is much higher than we originally anticipated, we've decided to go ahead and only produce a pilot episode at this stage. We're hopeful that with a pilot in hand we will be able fundraise for the remaining amount. Fingers crossed! Ideas? Suggestions? Any funders out there?

Materials Update #7 Flashcards & Picture Cards

It's official, we have given a CD of with 72 flashcards and 288 picture cards to the resource team for printing. Now we are waiting for quotes from printers. We will print 500 sets. With the flashcards and picture cards in hand we can actually start the program. The other materials are somewhat supplemental, although completely necessary from our perspective. At least with the flashcards and picture cards the teachers will have most of the raw material with which they can teach and run activities. This has been a VERY long process. Much much longer than we originally anticipated. From coming up with creative ideas for each of the cards, deciding on a list of sounds, blends, alternative spellings and common combinations, contracting out original illustrations for each of the 360 cards, designing the layout, and coming up with appropriate logos, etc. It has been an arduous although exciting process. I am hopeful that once all the materials are finished, this program will be a comprehensive and exciting tool kit for teachers and students. It's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but each time we send off something for print, we get one step closer.

Materials Update #6: Flip and Blend Chart

Here are some pics of our materials that we've just gotten from the printers.

As students flip each page they can make new words by just changing 1-2 letters. Some of the words will be non-sensical, but the goal is to get them to start sounding out and reading words.


Sumangali is holding up a draft print out of two of our para cards. Parvathy is holding up the flip chart. The para card has a story about a cow on it, hence the reason why the flip chart says "moos".

Materials Update #5: Teacher Pic

Our revised and much improved 'teacher' picture.

Materials Update #4: Editing

With over 360 images, it has been a challenge to keep track of all our requests, the changes and the final images, although we have managed to keep it pretty well sorted. And our illustrators have been very patient with us and all our demands. Today I was going through the picture cards for a final edit to make sure there were no glaring errors--spelling, the wrong picture with the wrong word, etc. I thought we had finalized all the images, but for the word "teacher" this is what I found:



Eek! This is exactly the image of a 'teacher' we are trying to avoid. In our instructions to the illustrator we said that the teacher SHOULD NOT have a cane. But perhaps she misread it and thought it said 'should have a cane.' And for some reason this image didn't get sent to us in the initial preview, otherwise I'm sure we would have caught it. The last thing we want to do is promote the image of the teacher as having a cane and looking as if she is ready to beat a child. That may be a reality in many schools, but should not be reflecting in our materials. But it is comical that something like this almost got through. This just means we need to look at everything with a very fine tooth comb!

Materials Update #3: Printing

Good news! We have material. Our blending flip chart just arrived (pictures to be posted soon). The tool itself turned out pretty well. Several people in the office have already sat and started playing with it blending the different sounds together to make sensical and non-sensical words. However, the black ink quality isn't great and there are some smudges in places. We are going to complain to the printer, but now that we have already printed 500 there probably isn't much we can do.

Our sight word cards and sentences cards have also arrived. And while I haven't seen the final product, I'm told they look good.

Brief Hiatus--Back from the Himalayas

I've just returned from a 2 week hiatus in the mountains. The first week I was in Shimla saying good-bye to the 2008-2009 Clinton fellowship class. Soon I'll be welcoming the 2009-2010 class at orientation in September as I have extended my fellowship. The second week I was in Leh, Ladakh celebrating my transition from fellowship to fellowship thanks to the Wall Alumni Grant. It was a fabulous and much needed break from the office, the heat and the daily grind. Plus I got to wear socks and a hat while exploring the absolutely stunning mountain desert scenary. Although it was so dry up there that my skin was aching to get back to the humidity of Chennai. And my stomach was dying for some fresh curd after a possible bout with giardia. I'm back in the swing of things and our materials are starting to come back from the printers. FINALLY!

Materials Update #2: Printing

With more than a few delays and bumps in the road, we have finally sent 3 things to be printed: 160 sight word cards, 64 sentence cards and the flipchart. We are printing 500 of each, so we are still waiting to get price quotes from different printers, but the materials have been finalized and they are on there way. Hopefully within a week we will be able to see and hold a final product! What an exciting moment that will be when this project finally begins to materialize!

The title page of our "flip and blend" phonetic blending flipchart. Illustrations were done by Luckshmi and the design was done by RJ, an intern from McGill University.

Materials Update #1: Illustrations

In order to get all our materials ready to be printed we need two things 1) content and 2) illustrations. Most of our content is complete, although it's in constant revision. But the biggest piece has been contracting out illustrations for this project. Not only do the illustrations have to be simple and bold, they have to be culturally relevant and appropriate for rural primary children in India. Currently we are working with five illustrators. We have collected 242 illustrations, but we still need 80+. We are desperately waiting for our illustrators to make corrections, send us sketches for approval and finally send us final images. It has been a really fun process thinking about what images we want to use to teach certain sounds or groups of sounds. And it has been really fun seeing what the illustrators send back to us. We are working with some very creative people. Here are a few examples of what our materials will look like and include:

"This pig has pants." This is the image on the 'p' flashcard.

"A rabbit rides a rocket." This is the image on the 'r' flashcard.

Solution #1: Alternative DVD Production Companies

With the news that our DVD production company was backing out, we swung into high gear and found two other alternatives. We met with them last week to discuss our concept and have submitted samples of our content. They will each write up a proposal and submit a budget by the end of this week. Let's hope our initial budget is within range of these new proposals. Both have different strengths to offer the project 1) is production focused 2) is education and multi-media focused. I'm secretly hoping that there is a way to bring them both into the project. Hopefully we will be able to make a decision and get a signed contract within a week.

Wall Alumni Service Award

An Exciting Announcement:

"Ready to Read" has been awarded the Wall Alumni Service Award from Grinnell College, USA.

The award will be used to:

• Design and print the Ready to Read Kit for schools. The kit includes: flashcards, picture cards, sight word cards, a graded reading library of 80 sentences, 32 paragraphs, and 32 stories, a blending flipchart, gameboards, a student activity book and a bilingual teacher's manual.
• Produce a supplementary DVD.
  
• Train and employ program staff.
• Support monitoring and evaluation of the program.

Within a few weeks we will be training local field staff and starting the program in 37 Eureka Learning Centers in 9 districts in Tamil Nadu. The initial reach of the program should extend to approximately 2220 students overall.

The Wall Alumni Award, in addition to AID and AIF fellowship funding will support this project through March of 2010. Please visit this blog often for project updates!

Thank you Grinnell College and the Wall Alumni Award Service Committee!

Challenge #1: DVD Production Post-poned

Let's face it, this isn't the first challenge the project has faced, but it is very frustrating, hence the blog post. Everyday seems to confront us with one more challenge: the illustrator is busy or wants more money than we can offer, the internet isn't working, the power is cut, our printer changes his initial quotes, our design and layout editor falls sick, etc. etc.

But two days ago I got an SMS from our DVD director/producer saying she would have to push back the time line by 2 months. Apparently, not everything in India works based on personal relationships and contacts....we should have insisted on a signed contract at our last meeting. Now we are scrambling to find a new film production company that can do this project for us and we were supposed to start filming in two weeks.

On the upside, we have a bit more time to finalize our content and go to print with our materials. Although we need a few more illustrators and a logo we can all agree on.

AID India's English Action Research Team

Celebrating our grant award with an afternoon ice cream outing.
(Kirsten, Sumangali, Parvathy, Priya and
Sumangali's daughter front and center)

Stay Tuned!

New and improved: This blog is being revised and revamped to host the progress and developments of the "Ready to Read" Program. This reading program aims at providing primary-age students in Tamil Nadu's government schools tools to begin reading in English through a time-bound module.

More Coming Soon!

Finished!

Sadly this blog became defunct as I packed my bags and left Japan in 2007 to travel and then finish my MA studies on campus at the University of Birmingham from January-April of 2008. After completing the second half of my coursework on campus I returned to Portland, OR, my hometown to write my dissertation. I submitted my dissertation entitled "Identifying the Socio-Linguistic Gap: A Comparative Analysis of Young Learner English Textbooks from Tamil Nadu, India" at the end of August. One week later I was on a plane to Delhi as an AIF Service Corps Fellow placed to work with the English Action Research Team of Eureka Child an AID India education initiative in the state of Tamil Nadu.

I've been living and working in Chennai since September of 2008 and after an exciting turn of events I'll be staying until March of 2010. There is more to the story....stay tuned.