Evening class
I have already told you how vital it is that children learn English here if they have any hope of getting a good education. Last week I went with Lori out to Knar School, an hour away on a tuktuk but a thousand miles away from the environs of Siem Reap. The foundation does a huge amount at this school and there are many ongoing projects. Not least of which is getting some shower facilities available so that the children can bathe at school.. The villages have no clean water, no electricity and there is abject poverty.
But I am not writing to tell you about that, that is for another day.
The children from the nearest High School have not had the benefit of English classes from an early age and are now seriously disadvantaged. These are the brightest of the kids who want to go on to higher education; this will be denied to them unless they have a sound knowledge of English. After their normal school day, which finishes at 5 they cycle for an hour to come to Knar School for an evening class in English given by a Khmer Teacher. The class is meant to last for three hours. This at the end of the day when they have already been studying all day and they are missing their dinner. Picture this, it is already dark and you arrive for class desperate to learn. The classroom has a rudimentary lighting system rigged up. The Principal lives on site; his only source of electricity is a car battery and so for the evening class a wire is draped from his house and lights a single light bulb. It is pitch black outside as there is no light pollution here to aid you. You sit in the almost darkness, the air is thick with mosquitoes, you are tired and hungry but you really want to learn. All this would be bad enough but, when you get there, and sit for three hours -the teaching is crap.
It is not his fault really. He does this as an extra and asked the class of 28 to pay $1 a month for the class - only 7 could afford to do that. Teacher's are not paid enough to live on here. It is not about the money though it is slack of training. He stands at the front, reads from a text book, gets them to write something from the text into their exercise books and moves on to the next page. When we first arrived he was talking about telephoning someone. Five minutes later he was talking about flying and 'first class compartment' then another 5 minutes and it was Grandmother. All the time the kids are just manically writing things down. There is no consolidation, no conversation,. no explaining pronunciation, nothing. We were in despair. All this and it was in the dark too. Then, at the end of a useless lesson they had to cycle home across the paddy fields in total blackness and if they were lucky, get some dinner.
So, the first thing was to get some big batteries to take out to get some more lighting. This week, when the lights were set up they cheered and clapped. Imagine getting so excited over something that, we, in the west, don't even think about. It is a given. It's dark;turn on the light.We did the class, got some energy into it. Got them talking. Worked on pronunciation, consolidated made it fun, just made it better. The Teacher is being sponsored to go to English classes here, in Siem Reap. They are expensive but they are run by Australians and so are good. We need to get him better at it. In the meantime volunteers will go and teach, including me. It is a difficult class because it is far away and involves a long journey home in the pitch black. But we have fantastic drivers who are good friends to the foundation and would do anything for us so that makes us feel safe.
They deserve the best, these children, we aim to try to get it for them.
But I am not writing to tell you about that, that is for another day.
The children from the nearest High School have not had the benefit of English classes from an early age and are now seriously disadvantaged. These are the brightest of the kids who want to go on to higher education; this will be denied to them unless they have a sound knowledge of English. After their normal school day, which finishes at 5 they cycle for an hour to come to Knar School for an evening class in English given by a Khmer Teacher. The class is meant to last for three hours. This at the end of the day when they have already been studying all day and they are missing their dinner. Picture this, it is already dark and you arrive for class desperate to learn. The classroom has a rudimentary lighting system rigged up. The Principal lives on site; his only source of electricity is a car battery and so for the evening class a wire is draped from his house and lights a single light bulb. It is pitch black outside as there is no light pollution here to aid you. You sit in the almost darkness, the air is thick with mosquitoes, you are tired and hungry but you really want to learn. All this would be bad enough but, when you get there, and sit for three hours -the teaching is crap.
It is not his fault really. He does this as an extra and asked the class of 28 to pay $1 a month for the class - only 7 could afford to do that. Teacher's are not paid enough to live on here. It is not about the money though it is slack of training. He stands at the front, reads from a text book, gets them to write something from the text into their exercise books and moves on to the next page. When we first arrived he was talking about telephoning someone. Five minutes later he was talking about flying and 'first class compartment' then another 5 minutes and it was Grandmother. All the time the kids are just manically writing things down. There is no consolidation, no conversation,. no explaining pronunciation, nothing. We were in despair. All this and it was in the dark too. Then, at the end of a useless lesson they had to cycle home across the paddy fields in total blackness and if they were lucky, get some dinner.
So, the first thing was to get some big batteries to take out to get some more lighting. This week, when the lights were set up they cheered and clapped. Imagine getting so excited over something that, we, in the west, don't even think about. It is a given. It's dark;turn on the light.We did the class, got some energy into it. Got them talking. Worked on pronunciation, consolidated made it fun, just made it better. The Teacher is being sponsored to go to English classes here, in Siem Reap. They are expensive but they are run by Australians and so are good. We need to get him better at it. In the meantime volunteers will go and teach, including me. It is a difficult class because it is far away and involves a long journey home in the pitch black. But we have fantastic drivers who are good friends to the foundation and would do anything for us so that makes us feel safe.
They deserve the best, these children, we aim to try to get it for them.
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