This week has been one full of hello's and goodbye's and starts with us waving off the Phnom Penh volunteers on Sunday afternoon. It was a shame they couldn’t have stayed longer because it was great fun having them out here and we really enjoyed showing them how life goes in Chamcar Bai and Kep. However, I’m pretty sure we’ll see some of them again because by the sounds of it they’ve fallen in love with it as much as I have. Well, almost as much. :) Anyway, we spent most of the rest of the day sitting at the Veranda with Kevin and Jane talking about how our classes are going, listening to their advice and discussing lesson plans. We got some great ideas from them and were looking forward to trying some of them out the next day in our classes while they observed us teaching.
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On Monday morning we took the big BAB tuk tuk to Chamcar Bai with Kevin and Jane and, admittedly arriving a little late, began our lessons. Last week I got out the colouring pencils in my youngest class and it was a great success so I figured I’d use them again. They’d been taught the four emotions happy, sad, angry and scared the week before so I wanted them to draw pictures of what made them feel happy, sad, angry and scared. Most of them drew flowers for happy so I thought they’d understood but I suppose it was when I noticed them drawing the same for sad, angry and scared that I realised I was wrong.
At lunch time we took Kevin and Jane to see the Red House where we sat and discussed more teaching ideas over a delicious lunch prepared by Paa. Jane, who wa.jpg)
s watching my class of little kids, suggested that, because they are so young, it would be better to teach them purely through games, songs, drama activities and drawing. I took her advice the next day and got them all pretending to be suns, clouds, rain and wind. Some students were a bit scared at first and wouldn’t join in but soon enough I had an entire class of happy, excited clouds running between the desks. After singing Incy Wincy Spider and If You’re Happy and You Know It, I got them to calm down a bit by instructing them step by step to draw a face (teaching them eyes, ears nose etc along the way). I think it was the most successful lesson I'd taught that class so far.
We’ve also started teaching the advanced teachers differently, having moved on from mostly grammar-based lessons to more theme-based teaching (as suggested by Kevin). I’ve decided to start with ‘the environment’ so we’ve spent this week discussing the problems, causes, effects and solutions of litter pollution. Coincidentally, I picked up a brochure about litter pollution and beach clean-ups in Kep last weekend so I got them to read parts of that. It also gave me the idea of helping them to set up a litter pollution campaign in the village so next week they’re going to start making a leaflet and/or posters about it. I think they’ll do a good job because most of the students are Youth Group members who are very good at organizing campaigns and events in the village.
Since Kevin’s visit we’ve also been informing some of our advanced students about scholarships to UWCSEA. A number of them were very interested in finding out more about applying at the beginning of next year. I think Kevin said there’s only 1 place for a Cambodian IB scholarship to our school so the chance that one of them will receive it is slim. However, the application process will be a good experience for them and in a small way it will hopefully send a message of hope through the community when the people see that there are such opportunities for them. If some of them do decide to go ahead with applying it will be very important that they come to as many classes as possible but this is proving quite difficult now that public schools have started again. To solve this problem Tom and I have decided to teach the class at two times – at 10am and at 5pm. The evening class usually has reasonably good turnout although it does mean cycling back home in the dark!
At the Coconut Project I’ve been having a good time with Sara and Rea.jpg)
t in particular. Sara (right) is 17 years old and Reat (below) is 14 and they’re always together. I usually sit with them while we work away at sandpapering coconut shells and they spend the greater part of the hour pointing to objects and asking: “What is it?” I'll tell them the English word for the object and then they will tell me how to say it in Khmer and will drill me on it until I pronounce it right. I only taught two Coconut Project English classes .jpg)
this week because of heavy rain (the waterfall was so swollen that I was afraid to get wiped off my feet when I crossed!) but I’ve started using an idea that Jane gave me. Most of the students don’t know the alphabet or the sounds each letter makes but they get bored if I teach them a lesson based solely around that. Jane suggested having a ‘Letter of the Week’, e.g. A, and that at the beginning of every class I give them a word beginning with that letter and get them to write it down and draw it. Hopefully they should eventually have a small alphabet dictionary and they’ll pick up other sounds along the way.
Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Ifya and Unlucky, our two cats. We’re not sure why but they both died on Thursday morning after being very ill overnight. The same morning promised a flat tyre on the way to school and the beginning of a cold for me so it wasn’t the best of days. However, this weekend we have Tom’s parents to visit and so we’re enjoying little luxuries of hot showers and being able to afford steak :)
.jpg)
On Monday morning we took the big BAB tuk tuk to Chamcar Bai with Kevin and Jane and, admittedly arriving a little late, began our lessons. Last week I got out the colouring pencils in my youngest class and it was a great success so I figured I’d use them again. They’d been taught the four emotions happy, sad, angry and scared the week before so I wanted them to draw pictures of what made them feel happy, sad, angry and scared. Most of them drew flowers for happy so I thought they’d understood but I suppose it was when I noticed them drawing the same for sad, angry and scared that I realised I was wrong.At lunch time we took Kevin and Jane to see the Red House where we sat and discussed more teaching ideas over a delicious lunch prepared by Paa. Jane, who wa
.jpg)
s watching my class of little kids, suggested that, because they are so young, it would be better to teach them purely through games, songs, drama activities and drawing. I took her advice the next day and got them all pretending to be suns, clouds, rain and wind. Some students were a bit scared at first and wouldn’t join in but soon enough I had an entire class of happy, excited clouds running between the desks. After singing Incy Wincy Spider and If You’re Happy and You Know It, I got them to calm down a bit by instructing them step by step to draw a face (teaching them eyes, ears nose etc along the way). I think it was the most successful lesson I'd taught that class so far.We’ve also started teaching the advanced teachers differently, having moved on from mostly grammar-based lessons to more theme-based teaching (as suggested by Kevin). I’ve decided to start with ‘the environment’ so we’ve spent this week discussing the problems, causes, effects and solutions of litter pollution. Coincidentally, I picked up a brochure about litter pollution and beach clean-ups in Kep last weekend so I got them to read parts of that. It also gave me the idea of helping them to set up a litter pollution campaign in the village so next week they’re going to start making a leaflet and/or posters about it. I think they’ll do a good job because most of the students are Youth Group members who are very good at organizing campaigns and events in the village.
Since Kevin’s visit we’ve also been informing some of our advanced students about scholarships to UWCSEA. A number of them were very interested in finding out more about applying at the beginning of next year. I think Kevin said there’s only 1 place for a Cambodian IB scholarship to our school so the chance that one of them will receive it is slim. However, the application process will be a good experience for them and in a small way it will hopefully send a message of hope through the community when the people see that there are such opportunities for them. If some of them do decide to go ahead with applying it will be very important that they come to as many classes as possible but this is proving quite difficult now that public schools have started again. To solve this problem Tom and I have decided to teach the class at two times – at 10am and at 5pm. The evening class usually has reasonably good turnout although it does mean cycling back home in the dark!
At the Coconut Project I’ve been having a good time with Sara and Rea
.jpg)
t in particular. Sara (right) is 17 years old and Reat (below) is 14 and they’re always together. I usually sit with them while we work away at sandpapering coconut shells and they spend the greater part of the hour pointing to objects and asking: “What is it?” I'll tell them the English word for the object and then they will tell me how to say it in Khmer and will drill me on it until I pronounce it right. I only taught two Coconut Project English classes .jpg)
this week because of heavy rain (the waterfall was so swollen that I was afraid to get wiped off my feet when I crossed!) but I’ve started using an idea that Jane gave me. Most of the students don’t know the alphabet or the sounds each letter makes but they get bored if I teach them a lesson based solely around that. Jane suggested having a ‘Letter of the Week’, e.g. A, and that at the beginning of every class I give them a word beginning with that letter and get them to write it down and draw it. Hopefully they should eventually have a small alphabet dictionary and they’ll pick up other sounds along the way.Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Ifya and Unlucky, our two cats. We’re not sure why but they both died on Thursday morning after being very ill overnight. The same morning promised a flat tyre on the way to school and the beginning of a cold for me so it wasn’t the best of days. However, this weekend we have Tom’s parents to visit and so we’re enjoying little luxuries of hot showers and being able to afford steak :)
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