Meet Elikutty, the American teaching Malayalam in Kerala

After everything, one question lingers. What does Elizabeth Keyton have to say about her efforts to master Malayalam... 
( Elizabeth Keyton teaching students at the Government Upper Primary School, Muttuchira | EPS )
( Elizabeth Keyton teaching students at the Government Upper Primary School, Muttuchira | EPS )

KOTTAYAM: Elizabeth Keyton is from Georgia in Donald Trump land. But that is not where you will find her.

An English teacher, Elizabeth was found hosting a two-hour session at the Government Upper Primary School, Muttuchira, about 25 kms from Kottayam. Wonder why?

It was to teach 50 students in the village new techniques to study Malayalam. She developed these methods while attempting to learn Malayalam after meeting and then marrying Arjun Ullas, from Ernakulam, while working in Dubai.

"I have always loved languages. I have a background in Spanish, Korean, and Japanese due to the various places I've worked as an English teacher. After moving to the UAE and meeting Arjun, I was quite interested in learning Malayalam as well," said Elizabeth, Eliza to friends.

Falling in love with Malayalam led to Elizabeth giving herself a new name - Elikutty. 

Caption
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She opened a Facebook page, Learn Malayalam with Elikutty, to teach Malayalam to students in Dubai, and it went viral within a few days. 

Her methods to make learning the language easier include connecting the letters to memorable words and images as well as smileys. 

"I found that Malayalam resources are difficult to come by and in addition to that, the Skype ban in UAE really limited my chances to learn. So, since I'm a language teacher, I started making my own resources and sharing them through Instagram," she said. 

Elizabeth is also active on YouTube.

It was while vacationing at her husband's house in Kerala for a month that she was invited to the Muttuchira School by a Kottayam-based organisation, 'Kalakal' Art Academy, which works to promote new ways of learning. 

Elizabeth is interested in continuing her association with the organisation. 

"I will love to continue it (teaching Malayalam to the students in the school). Presently, I am partnering with the Malayalam Mission in Dubai and volunteering to be a sort of moral support for the children, as well as continue my own learning. I also hope to publish books to encourage writing and reading of the alphabets," she said.

According to Gurudath Sadanandan of Kalakal Art Academy, the organisation is keen on working with Eliza in the future as well. 

"In fact, we are researching how the arts and languages can be learned with a different perspective. We hope Eliza can significantly contribute to our efforts," he said.

As she begins to leave, one question lingers. What does Eliza have to say about her efforts to master Malayalam? 

"It's difficult due to the grammatical differences and unique sounds compared to the languages I am more used to. Also Malayalam has a variety of expressions and slang too," she said. But then Elikutty has her methods...

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