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How to teach Sanskrit to a kid

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Kaija Eddy
How to teach Sanskrit to a kid

Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in the world and it has long been one of the most important methods of gathering knowledge and ideas in ancient India and a large part of Asia. Moreover, Sanskrit is not just a language but when learnt from a young age, it aids the growth and development of a child’s brain as well. Yet as the newer languages started dominating the world, Sanskrit language learning mostly took a backseat and misinformations about it started surfacing, along with educators becoming discouraged from teaching the language properly. This led to most kids hating to learn Sanskrit in school. In this article, we will explain how to change this picture.

How you can help your kid to learn Sanskrit

As if the sheer number of letters (total of 104) and complex grammar weren’t enough, Sanskrit has a confusing alphabet as well. It contains a total of 16 vowels, making it much more difficult to read than other alphabets. Yet there is an upside to the Sanskrit language. Unlike every other language on earth, it remains the exact same as what it used to be in the ancient times and the grammar still follows the Paninian rules made at that time. So Sanskrit for beginners is not going to be confusing if the right teaching methods are undertaken.

If you have learnt Sanskrit in your own childhood and hated it, it wasn’t for the difficulty of the language, but it was for bad teaching methods. Because of its structured grammatical rules, Sanskrit resembles Mathematics a lot and we all know how important the role of the educator is in teaching a subject like that - a student can grow up resenting and avoiding it, or he/she may end up falling in love with it. In the 21st century, the teaching methodologies evolved and offline and online both techniques are available. However, the techniques for Sanskrit language learning will be vastly different from the rest of the languages whether it is to learn Sanskrit online or offline. Here we have listed down a few effective methods to help you out-

 

  • Discontinue memorizing tables:

 

To learn Sanskrit, a long list of tables need to be kept in mind for each word, verb, and sentence. However, if one tries to memorize all the tables, not only does it get tremendously boring, but it will also limit the kid’s knowledge as there are simply an uncountable number of such tables in Sanskrit. Instead, the teacher should educate the child on the underlying principles that make up the tables, which aren’t that many. It’s like a mathematical formula, learning which facilitates the derivation of all the by-products of the same. 

For example, once someone knows how to multiply two algebraic identities like (a+b), they never have to memorize the formulas of (a+b)2 or (a-b)2 and every other such derivative. Similarly, once the kid is versed with how, say, the verbs work in Sanskrit (remember only the table of that) and where to use them, they can easily start creating sentences.

 

  • The use of interesting learning tools:

 

The major way a human learns a new language is not by memorizing a bunch of rules, but by getting familiar with the language through visual and auditory senses. Introducing the kid to exciting fables, shlokas, poetry, plays, etc. written in Sanskrit as well as providing exposure to the classical Indian arts and culture may help him/her understand what Sanskrit language learning is all about. Also, the Sanskrit mantras and hymns have a musical tone to them which resonate quite nicely and kids pick up on them fast and help them to learn Sanskrit more easily. 

 

  • The use of colors:

 

Sanskrit for beginners can be made really stimulating with the use of bright colors in lessons. The Sanskrit language is already created in an extremely organized fashion, all you have to do is recognize the pattern yourself and then teach your students.

Both the vowels and the consonants in Sanskrit have been classified into five groups based on the use of various organs of the mouth. You can make up an alphabet chart with different color codes for small and long vowels and another chart for consonants with color coding them by phonetics, like the image below:

You can even use an alphabet, a relevant word to go with it, and image of the word for recognition. 

 

  • The use of games:

 

As always, games are the best way of teaching a kid anything and Sanskrit is no exception. You may devise games for revision of grammatical formulas or to reinforce learning. For example, one game can be where the teacher divides the learners into two groups, gives each group a set of cards with formulas or words or even fragmented sentences, and sets a competition for arranging the cards in the correct orderanging them in the correct order. The winner will There are many learn Sanskrit apps nowdays which use gamification to help kids learn Sanskrit online.be the group which can complete the task first. This game can be played with fragmented words or even sentences on various cards. Nowadays there are also many apps available to learn Sanskrit who use gamification techniques to help kids learn Sanskrit online.

Conclusion

As you can see, Sanskrit language learning can be really easy as well as thrilling when the right teaching methods are used. If you want your child to learn Sanskrit but his or her school lacks the essential resources, there are a number of comprehensive and dependable learn Sanskrit online programmes that will lead your child through the language and its applications.

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