Been here almost a month, it seems like only yesterday. Two weeks of orientation and two of teaching. Don't know that I'll ever make an English teacher but as our tutor told us you can do no harm, I hope he was right.
Teaching from 630 to midday with a break from 830 to 1000 with the afternoons off. Preparation for the classes is taking about 2 hours per 1 of teaching. Lot more respect for teachers now although I'm assured the longer you are at it the less prep time required. My biggest difficulty is that I am teaching abstracts like respect and good manners to level 5. My best class so far was when I spent the whole hour insulting the class. In Khmer culture things like touching an unmarried woman, touching someome on the head or sit with the soles of your feet pointing at them are all taboo. They loved it, spent most of the hour laughing. Big gamble but paid off.
Level 3 is all about shopping. Heaps of new words and explaning what they mean and the use of same. Not quite as difficult as abstacts but you need lots of pictures which are hard to find as advertising brochures as we know them don't exist in Cambodia. Spending a lot of time on the internet. My other class is one on one tutoring with a member of the school staff. Lovely young woman, Rasmay, who is the accountant and her English is brilliant. This is the most rewarding of them all but stretches my knowledge of the English language.
For those who don't already know as part of orientation we visited an island village in the middle of the Meekon River about 7 long hours in a bus north of Phnom Penh. No running water, no electricity although some houses have methane gas drawn from the biodigester for cooking and lighting. Bed for the night was a woven mat, pillow of sorts and mosie net.
Roasted crickets and deep fried spiders were on the menu but did not try them. To thank the villages for their hospitality we paid for a generator and dj with his equipment to come across from the mainland for a party. Total cost $20.
Lunch at village
Bedroom for night
Who are these funny looking people?
Kids involved
Parties on!!!!
What we did not realise was that the villages considered us the entertainment and after a lot of silly behavour buy us stone cold sober foriegners we got the kids involved, with adults eventualy joining in.
