Teaching, Day 4

Yesterday was another teaching day. Up and out for 8am to arrive at the school for 9am.

Like usual, we sat in a big circle, sung the hello song and then split off again into our groups. Garrett was with us so he joined my group as he’d be taking over when I leave on Monday, so he could see what I’d been teaching and have some ideas of what to do when he took over.

To recap the beginning of this week, I started off going round the circle, asking them their name, then their age and finally how they were. ‘How are you?’ usually confuses them, and they try to repeat the question, so it was out with the emotion cards for happy, upset, angry, hot and cold, and they knew what they were doing.

After feeling like they had got it confidently, we moved on to counting to 20. Counting to 12 is very strong, but 13 always confuses them, and 16 and 19 are often said the wrong way round. 20 also throws them as they shout 70 at me, but after going over it a few times, they began to get the hang of it.

Garrett and I decided to introduce yet another knew thing, colours. Using the parachute we taught red, blue, yellow and green. The activity involved Garrett or myself shouting a colour and they had to jump on a segment that colour. This involved lots of screaming, but more importantly a whole sea of giggles and smiles.

Once they had those 4 colours in the bag, we introduced pink and orange, using the coloured ball pit balls. This activity again involved lots of laughing. They had the parachute in the air, I’d show them a coloured ball, they’d shout what colour, and then I’d throw the ball into the parachute which they’d then shake, so all the balls that wee already on there would fly off, and then they go and chase after them! Great fun!

After all the giggling, we decided they needed a calm down, so we started in the counting again, this time with books. They were getting more and more confident, with a lot less mistakes.

To finish off, we introduced ourselves again with our name and age, and then said how they were (all but one was happy, the other said ‘I am cold’).

We said good bye, jumped In the truck and waved to them as we trundled off down the bumpy dirt track.

For lunch, we went to The Red Piano, and had a variety of dishes, which we enjoyed by all.

We had an afternoon to ourselves, so we tidied, planned lessons and went to the church to pray. We then set off to the Student Centre in the late afternoon.

For a while, Philippa, Ellie, Chloe and Garrett watched the teacher teach English to a range of students. The teacher is a tuk-tuk driver in the morning, and an English and Chinese teacher in the afternoon, as the students are eager to learn both languages. The students are very confident with their English, as Monday to Thursday they learn, and Friday is a recap lesson where they go over what was taught earlier in the week.

Meanwhile, I was downstairs chatting with the university students about my school life, their exams and where and what we teach in the morning.

Once the others had finished upstairs, they came down, and we all played a game of Chinese Checkers with the students. It was very enjoyable and we thought it was good for developing a relationship and helping them be more confident around us.

We finished around 7:30pm, and decided to go for dinner at Peace Cafe. It was a vegetarian/vegan cafe that had a very interesting menu.

After, we decided to go to the Cambodian Night Market. This is the market that the Cambodians shop at for their clothes, shoes and food. There are also bumper cars and other fairground rides. After walking around, Chloe and I bought a chocolate crepe, which we throughly enjoyed.

We then got a tuk-tuk back to the hotel, and after relaxing, we all went to bed.

Playing Chinese Checkers