Moto Ride
After looking at some of the videos I took in Cambodia, I decided to email my friends who live in Phnom Penh. I haven’t heard from them since around the first week of January since we greeted each other on New Year’s Day. With other friends like Thida, I haven’t communicated with her since my last day in Phnom Penh. I probably won’t receive a response for at least a couple of weeks since some don’t have internet at work or at home. Like me when I was there, they would need to go to the internet cafe and pay about 37 cents each hour to check email. If I don’t hear anything soon, I’ll email them again during Khmer New Year in April.
In this latest video post Thida and I are on our way to one of the five village schools in the countryside where I taught three days each week. On a typical day I would work on my lesson plans early in the morning. If I taught in the village schools it would take about 30 minutes to reach the school by moto and depending on the school, I would start at 8:30 or 10 am. Usually the teacher whose class I would be teaching would become one of my students anxious to learn English and instead of assisting me they would take a seat in the already crowded classroom. Teaching the village kids as young as five years old was difficult because they’re just starting to learn the Khmer alphabet. I would read stories in English while Thida would translate in Khmer. Most days they enjoyed drawing and coloring about the story we had read. English lessons don’t start until high school for public school kids and most village kids don’t make it to high school. My organization tried to encourage kids to stay in school by rewarding students with perfect attendance with bags of rice and a small amount of money. Some kids received bicycles so they could reach the classroom from their distant homes. Kids in the village schools received free education and supplies while the teachers received a small salary. Usually I’d have lunch at home and sometimes in the city office with the staff. Immediately following lunch I would teach the staff at 1:30. With the staff I would bring the daily newspaper and we’d read and discuss the topics. I’d usually come up with a quiz or have them write so I could test their comprehension. It shocked me that they couldn’t tell me where the newspaper stand was. Most of the staff watched local news or listened to BBC for international news. Very few actually read the news even in Khmer. Whenever I would teach in the city, it would be in one of the classrooms on the roof of our office building. The offices were not equipped with desks and whiteboards so the roof was set up to house three classrooms. At first it was difficult because it was the end of rainy season when I arrived in October so when it rained it was difficult to hear each other talk. I lived with three different families during my short stay in Cambodia. My last host family lived very close to the main city classroom which worked out great because I would walk home if Thida couldn’t take me home. In the evening at 5 pm, I would teach classes to high school kids who were paying for English classes. These high school kids went to regular public school in the city but wanted to learn English so they would pay about $3 USD per month to attend evening classes taught by Khmer university students. There were adult night classes some evenings. Communicating in the city classroom where they spoke little English was not as bad as you’d expect. Here the high school kids could spell their Khmer name phonetically in English. I would ask my friends who did speak English to teach me easy Khmer conversation and we would translate that into English. The organization provided workbooks and teacher guides. The workbooks are great if you had an entire year but because I didn’t, I used singing as a way to pronounce and memorize sounds and words. I would have the iPod ready so we could learn songs first by reading the lyrics and then by singing the song. I found that memorization worked well if we repeated the same song throughout the week. Because I only had about three months to work with, I reviewed English with the high school classes in the evening this way in addition to working on workbook exercises. Richard Marx’ Right Here Waiting was popular when I was there just last year because it was being used as a song in a popular commercial. It was just a few decades late but I knew all the words. Using an iPod made a difference and I found the kids lingered around the classroom longer after class ended wanting to go over the songs. Not to make it seem like the Khmer culture is behind in songs after mentioning Richard Marx because my friends were always updating the ringtones on my cell phone to their favorite songs so now whenever I hear Flo Rida’s Low I think of Phnom Penh. The main obstacle for teaching the students and staff would be the different levels of learners in each classroom. Patience and deep breathing came in handy here. One day after returning from a long holiday weekend, I asked the staff to write about what they did. I gathered their papers and read it aloud anonymously but they all knew each other’s writing style and would criticize each other. Some would write only one sentence while a few would write enough to fill the page. There was some frustration and sometimes the staff members would feel discouraged to attend. Again, the iPod came in handy. I would read the lyrics first and then listen to them read the lyrics first as a group and then individually. Surprisingly, to the old creaky wheels turning in my head, the Khmer language was not as difficult to learn. I always thought you had to be a young child to learn a new language quickly. In Phnom Penh I always traveled with a pocket Khmer/English dictionary and some days did not find a need to use it. I didn’t learn the Khmer Sanskrit characters but instead studied the language phonetically. When you’re immersed in a language you’re forced to learn immediately because there would be no other way to eat, drink or tell the moto driver that he’s crazy for asking such a price for a moto ride. I know I looked like a westerner but I did not have the means to pay as much. That topic will be reserved for another post: Rich foreigners who bargain with the poor locals. If you know anyone who would sponsor me to work in Cambodia, please let me know. It’s costly to teach in the non-governmental ngo-sponsored schools when there is no salary. I enjoyed teaching each day and found inspiration to produce lesson plans that made them want to attend my classes. For any class I’ve taught, I’ve always asked myself if I would want to be a student in my classroom. The staff and student attendance in the main city campus increased gradually when they found out an American was teaching. Teachers that taught at night with me also formed a class once a week so that we could practice our English conversation. I looked forward to meeting once a week with the city teachers not only because they spoke English but also because we never had time to talk while we were teaching our own classes. I got to know what they were studying in college and was surprised to find that most were not studying to become teachers but instead teaching at night to help pay for college. Have you ever heard of giving a pop-quiz to teachers? On a roof? While I was there, a returning Australian teacher was also teaching. She brought her sister with her for the first time and I enjoyed comparing notes on our first time teaching there. After I left, the director asked me to respond by email to a teacher who would be visiting later that summer that had the same questions and concerns that I had not knowing what to expect. A few times I did take advantage of the staff. I decided to make a lesson about a conversation using the word “recipe.” They had never heard of that word and we used it as part of a conversation that could be used for dinner with friends. The homework assignment was to bring me a Khmer “recipe” listing “ingredients.” I wanted the recipes for my own benefit and would be excited to try cooking the dishes in the U.S. But because they don’t cook using recipes, there were no recipes to collect. I learned Khmer words for the different vegetables and sauces. After just a few months, the staff seemed comfortable talking without looking at their notes but it was based on a lot of memorization of our dialogue. I only had three months. Just as I was settling into a rhythm and schedule of lesson plans and demands of the classroom, I was packing my bag to return home. It’s true that time flies when you’re having fun.
