Jain Center Los Angeles CA 1998 07 10th Anniversary of Jain Bhavan

Author(s): Jain Center So CA Los Angeles
Publisher: USA Jain Center Southern California

Page 81

Hindi Classes by Sachiben Jain
Hindi classes were started after having success with Gujarati classes. Surendra Jain was the first Hindi teacher. He taught for two years. At that time the classes were discontinued due to lack of interest.
Few years later there was a renewed interest and classes were started again. Surekha Chaplot and Sachi Jain have been teaching Hindi for the last two and a half years with help from Heena Vyas, Sudha Jain, Indu Jain and others. The first year we taught vowels, consonants and mantras. The second year we added grammar and short stories. This year we added a conversation class.
Our work is particularly challenging because we have children from ages 7 through 17 and at different proficiency levels all in the same class. We cannot split the classes because we have limited number of teachers and students.
We asked the students the reasons why they wanted to learn Hindi? The following are the two main reasons:
1. So they can communicate with their grandparents and other relatives when
they visit India.
2. So they can understand Hindi movies.
As interest develops we will get better organized and learn from the experience and success of our fellow Gujarati teachers. Teaching is extremely rewarding most of the time and frustrating sometime. We encourage everybody to volunteer to teach and share our experience. The rewards are worth a lot more than the effort we put in. We will always cherish the love and respect we have received from our students.
Jainism fascinates me because I don't think bad thoughts and say bad words.
- Mehul Parikh (10)
Jain Education Intemational