Ok, sorry for the digression - back to the main story. As I was saying, after we finished touring Siem Reap, Sanne and I headed back to Battambang where we'd be staying with a local family and volunteering for a week at the Cambodia Orphanage International (Mie decided to zip ahead to Vietnam where she'd do some trekking and then meet back up with us when we arrived there after volunteering). Contrary to the name, it's not actually an orphanage. Currently, its main contribution is as an English school for underprivileged Cambodians who live nearby, which is where we fit in, as English teachrs. (They are working on sponsoring local orphans by providing them grants of food/medicine to help support them until they come of age, but that's not how we helped).
Ok, again I digress - back to the teaching! We had 4 classes a day: young kids (emphasis on basic vocab etc) at 8-10 am and 12pm-2pm, and then older kids (emphasis on conversation) from 4pm-5pm and 5pm-6pm. Busy schedule! Especially for Sanne, who I had already learned from our travels was not a happy camper if she had to wake up before 11am. As most of you know, I'm used to getting up obnoxiously early for running etc, but it was still a bit rough.
The kids themselves were absolutely charming. They were clearly very happy, and loved learning, especially when we let them play hang man or sing songs. One thing I noticed quickly was that some of the students seemed to be simply repeating what they heard or read without really understanding what they were saying(in class, a lesson might just be each kid reading a page of vocabulary out load to the class. They also were able to hold basic conversations ("what is your name?", "where are you from?", "what do you like to do in your free time?"), but again I was concerned that they were just repeating stock phrass they'd learned but didn't really understand. I had a group of children who appeared to have very differing ages all tell me that they were 8 years old. In fact, one girl told me in one class that she was 8 (what everyone else was saying), and then in the next class with older kids she told me she was 14. I also never heard an answer to "what do you like to do in your free time?" other than "I like to read a book." Hmmmm. To help deal with this, Sanne and I devised several exercises to emphasize comprehension (Sanne deserves the credit here - we basically did what her teachers did when she learned Engish as a second language). My favorite of these exercises was Simon Says - the kids got extremely good at this quite quickly, and if I'd had more time I would have told them more and more complicated phrases. Hopefully the permanent teachers there will pick up where I left off.
All in all, this was a fantastic experience. On the one hand, it was frustrating to see the children struggling to learn English while dealing with a lack of resources and especially with the lack of a solid curriculum and with native teachers who themselves weren't completely fluent. However, they are doing their best with what they have, and it was very rewarding to help as much as I could, even if only for a week. I like to think that even in that short time I was able to help make at least some difference, especially by emphasizg exercises that require comprehension, not just repeating what someone else has said. If the native teachers follow this example, that would be huge!
I just wish I had more time - if I had 3 months or so I would have tried to help build a stronger curriculum, and help teach the teachers how to make sure the students weren't just repeating what they said without really understanding. This was certainly an eye-opening experience about the challenges kids in these countries are facing, and what a difference we can make if we apply our resources (time and money) well.
the students of Cambodia Orphanage International. Here they're displaying the new notebooks / pens that were just distributed to them.
in an attempt to make sure the kids were actually comprehending the word definitions rather than just reading what the book said without understanding, Sanne and I devised a game where they had to label everything they see with post-its. As you can see, the kids got a real kick out of labeling the teachers' noses, ears, etc.
me and Sanne with our homestay family. The homestay was one of my favorite parts of this week. Our family was so friendly and welcoming. And it was great to get to see how a Cambodian family lives - our homestay was certainly a lot different from just staying at a (comparatively fancy) guesthouse, as you'll see from some of the pictures below.
the toilet / "shower" at our homestay. The toilet is the hole in the ground, the "shower" is the big reservoir of water and a water scoop. I have never appreciated a Western toilet/shower as much as I did on our first night back in town.
my bedroom during the homestay. I got the bed, while one son slept in the hammock, and the dad and the other son slept on the floor. Definitely not something you'd see in the US.
my main contribution to the COI - teaching them new songs. Here Sanne and I are teaching them Mary Had a Little Lamb. We also taught them Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
group photo with one of our classes
everything we did seemed to be fascinating. We eventually got used to being stare at while eating, while writing up emails on the laptop, or in Sanne's case here, while writing song lyrics on posterboard.
the class hard at work copying down the word for Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
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