[Treth] Teach What You Love

[Tei'serin Nji'ryn]

15th Saun, 717


Tei'serin had been thinking about giving her students a language lesson off and on for seasons now. One of the first things she had learned as a new teacher was that if you teach what you love, your students will see your passion and respond well to it. And she loved languages. She was fascinated by them. Learning new languages was a large part of that, but she was also interested in how they originated, where they sprang up, and the peoples who spoke them. If she could, she would learn every language that existed. She had heard that some cities had universities where you could do just that. But Ne'haer wasn't one of them. Even if it was, Thorin would never allow it. The best she could hope for was to get as many books about different languages as she could, and try to teach herself in her free time. It was a dream of hers...but it was little more than that; a dream. But her passion for the subject was very real. And she knew that if she were to teach the subject, her students would sense how much she loved it. It would be impossible for them not to.

The problem with teaching a lesson about different languages was that she had to make it age appropriate for a wide variety of ages. Still...it was a well known fact that children were able to learn new languages faster and more readily than adults could. With that thought in mind, she decided to give making a lesson plan for a lesson on languages a try.

The first step was to consult the books that the school owned on the subject. Treth was a small village, so she didn't have many books to choose from, and the ones they did have were pretty basic. But in this case, basic was good. She did have students that were only five arcs old, after all. And this would be a new subject for the older students as well. They had to start somewhere. If any of her students showed an interest in the subject, she could consult her own books on the subject for future lesson plans. She might even be able to justify ordering more books on the subject for the school.

So she skimmed through the books that were available to her. One of them was a book that taught the reader how to speak Rakahi. Since all of her students knew at least enough Rakahi to make themselves understood in the language, and many were fluent in it, she set that book aside. It was clearly geared more towards the children of families who had just moved to the area, and didn't speak any Rakahi. Some of the books were useful, though. And Tei'serin was pleased to see that a few discussed things that she hadn't known until she had read them. These books were studied carefully, and she took detailed notes on the aspects that interested her the most.

Mostly, though, she focused her search for information she could use in her lesson. One of the things she found of interest was a book that gave the names of the five main language groups, and listed which languages were in each.

I can use this. she told herself excitedly.

It will be a great introductory lesson for the kids. The information is easy enough for even the youngest of my students to understand, and it just might be enough to interest Sorin and a few of the other older students enough to make them want to learn more.

Tei'serin took five sheets of paper, and labeled each one for one of the of the main language groups; Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western, and Central.

[Tei'serin Nji'ryn]

Ne'haer is located in Western Idalos. I can use that as an aid to help the younger children relate to the lesson. It might help them to remember it better. Well, at least the languages in the Western Idalos language group. And those are...

Tei'serin consulted the book. Then she jotted the correct languages down on the sheet she had labeled Western Idalos; Athivelienic, Irarian, Nysin, Anume, Nidtaic, Rifaish, Dregneen, and Naratrien. Once she was done with that, she added her idea about telling her class that Ne'haer was located in Western Idalos. After a few trills, she repeated the process on each of the other four sheets of paper. On the one labeled Eastern Idalos, she wrote Omyeric, and G'ni. This was followed by Cerke, Murnasian, Basa, Perwarshian, Pij'thak, and Sulnysian on the sheet for Northern Idalos. For Southern Idalos, it was Banumi, Grovokian, Arathnaka Runes, Umhini, Dydahi Etch, and Xototi. And finally she wrote Pailtic, Ku'aric, Ominowa, and Yjik as being the languages in the Central Idalos group. She wanted to make certain that she put each of the languages in the right language group, so she took a few bits to check her work. Then she hit the books once more to see if there was anything else she wanted to include in her lesson.

There was some information that she thought would be good for the children to learn, but after giving the matter some thought, she decided against it. This was supposed to be an introductory lesson into the subject, after all. She wanted to get her students interested in the idea of learning new languages, not overwhelm them and frighten them off. If her lesson was a success, she could always plan more later. So she returned the books back to their proper shelves.

The next step was to help her students relate to the information that she wanted to teach them. Doing so would help to get them interested in the lesson, and it would also help them to remember what she wanted to teach them more easily. One way to do that was to tell them that Ne'haer was in Western Idalos. That would give them a connection to that particular language group, and it might make some of them want to learn a language from that group. To expand on that idea, she decided that she would go around the room and ask if any of her students had ever lived anywhere else, or if they had family that did. She could then tell them which region their city was located in, and remind them of which languages were spoken in that particular language group. Since she already knew that some of the kids would answer yes to those questions, she knew that it was a good thing to add to her lesson.

I'll have to do some research on where the different cities are located before I give the lesson, so I will know which regions they're in, but it should be easy enough to look that information up. she mused.

[Tei'serin Nji'ryn]

Another thing she thought might be good to add to the lesson was some of the jobs that would be aided by, or might even require someone to be fluent in more than one language. Tei'serin could think of several jobs that would fit into those categories. Translators were the first. Both ones who translated texts into languages that others could read, and those who acted as translators to foreign ambassadors, and such. There wasn't much of a call for them in Treth, but some of her students might well decide to move to Ne'haer if the job interested them enough. Traders and merchants were other occupations where knowing more than one language would be useful. It would be of great benefit to a trader to be fluent in the language of the people he or she was trading with, after all. And while merchants here in Treth were less likely to see many foreigners, anyone who wanted to own a shop in Ne'haer probably would. Even farmers who wanted to sell their goods directly to foreign merchants in Ne'haer rather than dealing with a middle man would find knowing an extra language or two very useful.

Giving the students practical reasons why the lesson they were learning was important because it would make them want to learn it, so Tei'serin jotted her ideas down carefully. Then it was time to decide what homework she wanted to assign for each arc group at the end of the lesson.

For the youngest kids, I think I will ask them to learn how to introduce themselves, and count to ten in one of the languages from the Western Idalos group. And if any of them want to do some extra credit work, they can do the same thing for more than one language. I don't really expect many of them will want to do the extra work, though.

Tei'serin jotted her ideas down.

For the next group. I could assign the same thing, but allow them to choose any language that interests them, and require them to choose three. If any of them want to earn extra credit, perhaps they could add another language or two, or more vocabulary words of their choice in one of the three languages they choose to work with.

Tei'serin made another set of notes.

And for the older kids, I think I will ask them to learn one hundred words of their choice. They can choose to learn them all in one language, or pick several that interest them. For extra credit, I will give them the choice between learning fifty more words, or writing a short paragraph in a language of their choice.

Decisions made, Tei'serin gathered up her notes. She would use them to write up a formal lesson plan after school the next trial. For now, though, it was getting late. If she wanted to get home before dark, she would have to leave now. So she locked the school up behind her, and put her notes in her saddle bag before mounting her mare, and heading out of the village.

[Gangui]

Rewards: +10 exp, +all knowledge requested

Comment:
I have not read any of Tei'serin's story.... however if I had to paint a picture of the character based on this solo, it would start with the following attribute: meticulous. The level of detail in which she prepares is astonishing and one visual testament of her love she of language. It was written very well and leaves me wandering how Tei'serin will react when her students throw a wrench in her plan Hope I get to read the next part of the story! Ill try to remember