“I used to be very scared to speak in English because I thought I would make mistakes and everyone would laugh at me, so I stayed quiet even when I knew the answer,” says Neha (name changed), a 12-year-old student from the Need Base India Girls Home in Bengaluru.

“I could understand everything the teacher was saying, but when it was my turn to answer, I would stay silent. I was too afraid of being judged or laughed at if I got it wrong,” says Sheela (name changed), also 12, from the same home.

“I liked English, but I never knew how to speak properly. I would get nervous and stop halfway,” adds Asha (name changed), 13.

In classrooms like these, English is not absent. It is present in textbooks, written in notebooks, and tested in examinations. For many children in care homes and government schools, especially in places like the Need Base India Girls Home in Bengaluru, it remains something they can read and understand, but rarely speak with ease.

What is missing is not learning. It is confidence.

And it is mostly this gap between understanding and expression that goes unnoticed in classrooms, but not by a student who walked into them with a very different question in mind.

A teenager who stepped into unfamiliar classrooms

Roshni Gupta is now 17 and studying in Class 11 at Mallya Aditi International School in Bengaluru. But when she first entered classrooms like those at the Need Base India Girls Home and nearby government schools in Rajajinagar, she was only 14, a Class 9 student trying to understand something she could not ignore.

She was raised in Bengaluru, where she grew up in a learning environment that encouraged speaking up, questioning, and discussion as part of everyday education. In contrast, what she observed in several government schools and orphanages, including Greater Hope Children's Orphanage, was very different.

The children were not disengaged. In fact, they were interested and responsive. They answered confidently in their own languages, participated actively in familiar topics, and showed genuine eagerness in learning. But when English entered the conversation, the energy in the room changed.

The voices lost their earlier confidence. Hands went down. Eyes turned to notebooks instead of teachers.

“It was not that they lacked understanding. They just were not used to speaking without fear,” the young girl shares with The Better India.

In May 2023, she........

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