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My Story...

I was always a teacher at heart! My teaching journey began in 1993, teaching English at a state board school. A B.Ed degree in English and Economics followed and soon I was teaching English to enthusiastic learners, who would just not take a young teacher as seriously as I thought they should! I taught at a couple of schools (always insisting that I would teach ONLY English) but I always felt that a piece of the jigsaw was missing which did not allow my love for teaching language to unfold the way I envisioned it! 

Fast forward to 2013! Marriage, two kids and a lot of informal volunteering projects later, I volunteered for Teach India, an initiative by Times of India to teach English to marginalised youth. From a volunteer, I moved on to joining them as an ELT consultant. I owe my career in ELT to this. I did not know it then, but this was what brought me to  the threshold of the world of ELT, a world I had just discovered, and was precisely what I had envisioned myself doing! I had finally found the missing piece of the jigsaw!

My thirst for learning increased manifold, and I set out to educate myself about ELT. The four skills and the four systems of language fascinated me and my interest in the communicative approach grew, as did my realisation that this approach is required in the classroom if learners were to acquire language skills rather than learn a subject. With the teaching and training experience gained through my work and a formal ELT qualification, I became an ELT consultant with the British Council and work with them on teacher education projects across India through teacher training, materials development and monitoring and evaluation.

Come 2019 and Covid struck! After the lockdown in March and a spot of Covid soon after, a couple of months went by before work even crossed my mind. An impassioned educator and self-motivated changemaker at heart, I soon bounced back and founded Learning Sutra, LifeLong Learning. Built on the principle of Language for Social Change, through this venture I dream of empowering learners with ‘real’ English to create positive change for themselves and for the world. 

 I now spend my working hours planning CEFR-aligned and age-appropriate language resources for learners, parents and teachers and run live workshops periodically with a focus on integrating global issues, thus taking English beyond the text book and making the English classroom a medley of topics like environment, inclusivity, global goals and many more drawn from the real-world. 

I am quite certain that this passion, now a mission, will be a lighthouse helping me sail smoothly through the waters and arrive at my destination of creating positive social impact. But for now, I wish to enjoy my journey as much as the destination by partnering with learners to co-create learning because I believe that too much teaching is the biggest obstacle to learning.