It has now been two weeks since I have been teaching and I feel like I have enough understanding and anecdotes to write an entry and share my experiences. My students are slightly older than predicted as I was supposed to get 11-15 year olds and I am currently teaching 16-25 year olds.
The most surprising thing yet has been the « juvenile » attitude and mentality that most Cambodians have. I am not saying this in the pejorative way. Let me explain... On Monday, we had a staff seminar with the whole PSE team of about 400 people. We were in a beautiful amphitheatre, which had been rented for the occasion. Throughout the morning, we watched presentations of every department in PSE (finance, health, English…) in Khmer, making it difficult for us volunteers to follow or understand as we had a very limited translation. After lunch, the seminar turned into a talent show. Literally. Teachers had prepared songs, dances and plays to present to their colleagues and we watched them perform from 13h to 17h. The managers also participated and opted for Karaoke. I didn’t understand much of the plays except that they were about education and hilarious because the translator that was communicating with us through earphones was laughing so hard that he gave up on translating after two minutes. It was truly the funniest seminar I have ever attended but I felt such a huge difference between the world of work here compared to the one I am familiar to. They definitely have a special outlook on life, learning and work. Now that I have told you about the teachers, imagine how students act during class. In other situations, working or teaching people who are older than me can make me very uncomfortable and nervous. Yet here, some of them are 5 years older than me and I feel at ease since the classes have to remain basic, rotating around games and repetition. I spent a lot of hours the first week observing techniques and exercises that other teachers use to determine what I was supposed to provide and bring to the students. I have noticed two things. The first one is that the key to teaching beginners classes is repetition. The second is that they learn easily through games. During my first classes, it was very difficult for me to make them play Bingo or read the same sentences over and over again. I would put myself in their shoes and think of how bored I would have been if I had to do games like that during my last years of high school. Therefore there is a huge gap between the teaching methods that I am familiar with and the ones used here. However, they are probably the best students I have ever met. Not because of their grades or homeworks but because of their attitude. They are in school to start a new life and better themselves and they have understood that education is the solution. In class, everyone participates, tries to speak English and listens to instructions. They want to learn and you can feel it. In addition to being older, all of my students are beginners and study in the FOUNDATION STUDIES DIVISION, the school for students who have to catch up on more than two or three years of school. I have eight different classes a week, two hours every morning and two hours every afternoon, each from Beginner one to Level one. The Beginner 1 classes are learning numbers, greetings and other basic phrases whilst the Level one’s are able to read and construct short sentences. It gets a little bit difficult at times since there is such a huge language barrier between the students and I and I am sometimes unable to explain an exercise or make myself clear. Normally, Khmer teachers are supposed to attend classes with the volunteers as we are officially just assistants but they often leave the class and I have to do two hours on my own. Although it’s hard, the students are so willing and happy to learn and understand that it makes it easier for me to teach. Little anecdote that puts everything into perspective: we were listing objects and furnitures which could be found in houses and the teacher asked his students if they knew what a bath was. They answered yes, and just to be sure, the teacher drew a « bath » on the board to illustrate it. Except that for the teacher, a bath was not a bathtub but just a single pot which you can dump water on your head with. I was so stunned that I did not even correct him. The biggest problem here is the lack of material. Last week, I was teaching a unit called «My World ». I had to talk and teach about Hungary, Brazil and Australia without even having a map of the world. I found it so ridiculous to be teaching them about countries that they were not even able to place on a map. These kinds of problems are frequent and I am planning on raising the issue during teachers meetings. To summarize, my students are adorable, always smiling and willing to learn, which makes it easy for me to get up in the morning. The teachers are proud and committed to sharing their knowledge with their students and I am so honoured to be a part of their life and education. For more pictures, scroll down to the French entry. :)
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Author/AuteurPolitics and international relations student, I wish to discover the world through smiles and sharing. Archives
Novembre 2017
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