Cricket is a game where you play either as a batting side or as a fielding side. Players from batting side try to score runs and the fielding side tries to stop the batsmen by getting them out. It sounds pretty similar to many games that are played worldwide, like baseball. But I am not going to blog about a game that’s played out door. I am blogging about an indoor game that I learnt during my school days. It is an amazing game where cricket is mixed with reading habit. It’s called Reading Cricket – conceptualized and invented by our Bengali language teacher Mr. Tejesh Adhikari.
This game is very simple to play – especially in a class room situation. So how is it played?
The “Rules”
There will be two teams of course. One will bat the other will bowl. But instead of bat and ball they will have the same book. Like the history book that is used by all students in the classroom. The team which is batting will be reading from the book. One of the team members will be reading the book aloud so that the other team can listen. The fun begins now.
1. If the batsman (the guy who is reading the book) can complete a line (note – a line not a sentence) will be awarded 1 run.
2. If the line contains just one word which is foreign and is not part of the normal vocabulary of the original language of the book, or is written in a different language alphabet. If the batsman reads that line with proper pronunciation, he will score 2 runs for that line.
3. Consider the point# 2 for multiple words but not the whole line. In this case the batsman will score 4 runs.
4. Now consider if the whole line is written in the foreign language – the bats man get 6 runs.
5. Now for all 2,3 and 4 the batsman should know beforehand and he can declare that he does not know the language. No one can penalize him for that.
6. So what the fielding team is going to do? They will listen carefully each word of the batsman. If any of the fielders finds that the batsman has mispronounced any one of the word according to the convention learned by the students in the school – he can appeal for an out. If the teacher thinks that the appeal is correct he gets out.
There were so many other things in it. But the above mentioned are the gist of what I can recall.
What an effect that it used to have when we used to do it in the school. The guys who never gave attention to anything used to glue to the pages and follow the batsman when they used to field. It is an amazing way to learn how to read, understand and possibly remember.
Like the best bridge players – who never forget a mistake that he has made in a deal or like a chess player who always remember the blunder that he had made, we used to remember our mistakes while reading.
I just thought this game might help a lot of people who works with young learners, who are dedicated to bring out the best in our young – if they know about it, they can try it.
If you try it please let me through your comments. If you want to know more about it – please ask me any question.
