Happy little things

"We were only missing Sophanuth today, so overall it was pretty good. I think they are all very accustomed to how our weekly routines now; because I generally teach group 3 the same things I teach Botevy and Yaya in the mornings, by the time I'm downstairs with group 3 they almost have everything on the whiteboard recorded in their notebooks. I really like this because it gives me less "sit-and-wait-while-they-write time" and more time to give explanations and examples of the words we learn. Pattica was telling me that last week he was talking to some tourists and that they needed paper for something, so when he took out his notebook they happened to see the notes he takes from our lessons and were very impressed that he was learning "university words." Experiences like this make me happy."

typing improvements

Our very first semester working with these kids, we taught them proper typing hand positions and spent a lot of time working on keyboard orientation.  When the first semester was over, most of group 3 kids could type at about 10 wpm with at least 96% accuracy.

 I had the majority of group 2, as well as Pattica and Chakrya, take a typing test twice (the first as a warmup) and the results are as follows:

Theary - 8wpm

Nana - 4wpm

Kanha - 15wpm (she's awesome!)

Theara - 5wpm

Chanty - 16wpm

Ama - 8wpm

Kasy - 4pm

Wichet - 16wpm

Pidor - 8wpm

Heang - 4wpm

sreymean - 5wpm

samol - 12wpm

Chakrya - 14wpm

Pattica - 12 wpm

Day 39 in Corbin-time

"Whew!  I started off by having those who did come practice typing; most of them could which I found very surprising. Afterwards we played a game where everyone made up a fake identity: name, job, whatever. 
One by one everyone we stood up and introduced ourselves and everyone had to ask the standing person a question. 
As fun as it could have been, the girls were a bit unimaginative (they all picked Khmer names and typical jobs like a doctor, a teacher, a student). 
They weren't really grasping the whole "made up" part of the game, sometimes we asked their age and they would give their real ages and I'd be like "You're 15 and a teacher?!" and then they would kind of catch on. 
When it was my time, I told them I was a ninja. Kannha said, "But on tv, ninjas are slim and tall." :/ It was a good attempt but I can see that their minds need to be much more open. I understand that creativity isn't fostered here like it is in the states so I knew it would be a bit difficult for them."

Power's in the plug.

"Today started off very much like yesterday.
(most of the students came in late)
I was going to have the the first three do a more "fun" activity looking up pictures of this week's words (as opposed to the boring "create a sentence for each" activity) but right after I had the words divvied up to everyone the power went out! In the end they had to just make up sentences, which is still educational but not nearly as fun. Depending on who comes tomorrow, some of them will probably suffer during my quiz (which they were surprised to hear I will still give considering all the absences this week).

They keep bothering me to watch a movie like how you did with them and I am considering it, but I told them IF I do it, I won't tell them when because I wouldn't want them to show up only because of the movie. Also, I plan on giving them a small assignment with it because why not? I'm so dastardly."

The longer I do this, the more I understand my elementary school teachers.

Clear instructions

It took a lot of time for me to find a way to give clear instructions.  Things I thought were clear soon appeared to be the opposite.

Corbin ran into the same thing with his folded-book project.

 "Today I had planned to help translate group2's Khmer story books into English; however I hadn't been clear with my instructions! Yes they did what I told them to, write a story in Khmer for all 6 pages of the book. But each page had like 8-10 sentences written on it! I thought "ok, we can still do this" but then as I started with the first student I realized that he had no idea what the English words were for the Khmer ones. I'm having them redo the assignment now; shorter stories and look up English words in a dictionary so that when they come back next week I can help them write the sentences correctly in English."

"When they came and I looked at their books "oh my goodness!" and they all laughed.Yeah I had set up the computers with the online dictionary but for some reason the Khmer keyboard wasn't working on any of them (because they don't know how to spell the Khmer words with English letters). I'll have it set up right for this week with the shortened versions of their stories."

Happy Valentine's Day!

Corbin:

"My day was not too eventful, although I did get to spend a lot of quality time with my current love: my laptop (actually it was just about the same as any day). Today's lesson with group 3 was alright; I quizzed them on a couple of different words and then they started asking me grammar questions so I spent the majority of the time explaining those. It's moments like these that me thankful I learned about how to explain things like the differences between the past, present, past perfect, and present perfect aspects. Only Socheat, Chakrya, and Phanith showed up today so it was a lot more quiet than usual. I had the three of them write you a little about whatever they wanted, so you can read that in the attachment!"


I had offered myself as a pen-pal for the kids so that their writing would have more meaning.  I found that it was a better product if the kids were sharing with someone, and I was missing them.  It was a wonderful present to get 3 letters. 

Dear: Aria

Hello! My name’s is socheat and I’m grade that I have opportunity to write a message to u. How are you and how about your study going on???

I would like to thank you for your coming and thought us what we can do or can understand all about English book and computer by the way I’m appreciate for you, I love you so much and I really so sorry for u that before I had a mistakes.

However I know that you don’t mind about what I did on you.

For the end I want to say I like u and love u so much because you’re a good person who I know and I think the god will be bless you all the thing that you want.

I wish you have a good health study hard successfully in your studying at BYU and your family too… form me :socheat

Dear: Aria

Hello! Aria, how are you? How about your school now? I miss you so much and all the children in the orphanage also. You know I’m so great full that I know you and you are very best teacher. I miss your teaching because you had tough how to type and write the present. I always remember when we had play card and watch movie together about Nemo. Thand you very much Aria for coming in Canbodia and teaching me and your kindness. You know my new teacher is very good he teach me and explant me very well. He is a good teacher like you.

                                                               From chakrya

Dear: Aria

Hello Aria, I’m Phanith. How are you? I miss you so much, I’m glad to send this letter to you. How was your studying? Did you graduate from university? Do you have job?

We are thanks you so much for your kind to tough us in Cambodia, that can make us know a lot about English and how to type on computers. I know that you are very best teacher. Now I had studying with Corbin. He tough us about TOEFL words. He is a one teacher that best like you.

I’ll try to study hard…..

Thanks so much Aria. I hope we will meet again on someday….

Good bye…take care…………

It is far from perfect, but it is legible and communicated effectively, which is an incredible step.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Another Holiday

It's hard to work around Holidays when they aren't your own and we're not an established school.  The schedules of the students change on a dime.  Sometimes we get to participate, others not as much.  But it always leads to getting better acquainted with the students.  

"It was Chinese new year weekend over here but honestly it was pretty uneventful for me. Botevy them don't celebrate Chinese new year (anymore) because what everyone does is go to Chinese restaurants and spend as much money as they can (or cook as much Chinese food as they can and invite everyone over). Apparently they believe that the more money they spend on Chinese new year, the more they will prosper financially the during the year (or something along those lines). 

I think my relationship with group 3 is improving. I decided to do over yesterday's lesson today and that's when Pattica told me that he was having a very difficult time understanding all the vocabulary words I've been teaching them. He thought I'd be mad but I was actually very happy that he was being honest with me! I'll be working on improving my lessons and giving more clear explanations and examples from now on."


--Corbin

Story Time!

This goes back to something we had learned with the first semester of interns.  It's hard for the students to create their own thoughts and sentences in English.  Aria worked with the little kids, re-telling the children's stories that they know.  Corbin did much the same here.  

"We did another word search (I think they like it) this time the words were all verbs. Afterwards we compiled a list of verbs and I had them create sentences using them. I gave them an assignment for the week: write a short story! I taught them to fold a piece of paper up and form a little 6-page booklet; they will write a short story in Khmer first then next week I will work with them individually to translate and write them in correct English."

Group 2, attempt 2

Group two is our mid-teenager group, ages about 14-16.  They meet with Corbin twice a week, on Saturday and Sunday, because their school schedules are all very different it's hard to make a time when they can all have a class.  It's hard to keep their attention in a class because they're so busy with their other schooling.

"Today with group 2 went a lot better than the previous weeks. Not only did they pay more attention to me, but I was able to incorporate a lot of speaking practice with them today as we played several different speaking games. I was not as nervous as usual so hopefully tomorrow goes the same for me!"

"I started with two primary songs, after which I drew a body on the board and had the kids tell me the body parts and how to spell them."

We divided teams, which is always hard in a group like this. 

 "With the teams divided I had them write down sentences about what they can do with their body parts. When I was finally able to get them to write a few sentences down I told them they were going to act out their sentences (simple ones like "I can hear with my ears.") and everyone said they understood but no one did anything so I had to have Vichet explain to them in Khmer because he seems to be the only one in class who actually means it when he says that he understands."

 Corbin is a TESOL major, this experience working with different age groups has been really beneficial in giving him more of a direction for the people that he would like to work with later in his career.  

"My [former] classmates and they seem to think I'm on the right track with group 2: just having a looot of activities to keep their attention and teach them indirectly since their English skills are all over the place and it's too hard to control them for 2 hours. "

King Norodom Sihanouk

Today was the start of a 4-day holiday as the funeral/cremation of the King. We were supposed to go in the evening but after watching the procession on tv this morning Botevy saw that there weren't that many people in the day, so there would definitely be more people at night.