Peou putting his new skills to the test

Mott Peou from Sangkheum Center for Children completed the teacher training course and reports in his own words the benefits of the course and what he’s learnt…

It was a beautiful last two weeks for the course at Salariin Kampuchea organization so I had learned a lot from the course such as teaching grammar lesson, listening, reading, classroom management, potential classroom problems and we had feedback at the end of every single session to find out the strength and weakness points to develop our teaching practice to apply to the real teaching demonstration after the course.

I definitely love the course and have seen myself much better developed in teaching styles almost every single session at my workplace and I am really satisfied the course that had provided lesson planning stages, new model techniques, students’ rapport and how to build up the relationships between the students and teachers to work well. I am interested in the course and really helpful for our English Programme especially the teachers who wants to teach students in formal way and successful.

At last I would like say many thanks to “Hope” that had given us the best teacher training course for last two weeks. It was precious weeks and times, should never forget and love forever. Thanks for your kindly.

Mott Peou, English Teacher at Sangkheum Center for Children

Peou in class with Steve Longley, Teacher Trainer

Peou attentive in class

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peou testing his new skills in a real classroom situation

Steve Longley, Teacher Trainer, in action

Training continues this week in Siem Reap for four teachers at HOPE supported organizations Sangkheum Center and Salariian Kampuchea. As Steve the trainer reports it’s all going extremely well.

…So the 1st week is complete and the teachers finally got to teach on Friday and put into practice what they had learned so far. Previously I had been teaching different skills lessons with them watching and looking out for specific areas of methodology. After they taught, they filled in a self evaluation form before commenting on each others lesson. I believe it was also an eye-opener for the busy week next week where their lessons increase from 20 to 40 and then an 80 minute lesson at the end. They know the workload will be tough but the trainees also know how much they will get out of their hard work.

With 3 days remaining of the course, the final 80 minute lesson looming and a 1000 word assignment to complete, the 4 trainees seemed remarkably happy. The 4 teachers have just completed their 40 minute lessons and are now getting used to commenting on each others teaching. No longer are they just waiting for the trainer to analyse the lesson but they themselves are now writing on the board how Teacher A did not meet his main aim or Teacher C used the whiteboard correctly during the student feedback. Also, after each lesson, the teacher is filling in a self evaluation form. This, along with peer analyses, are huge steps in progressing as a teacher.

Steve Longley – Teacher Trainer

Art being worn...

“Let’s hold an Art Day at one of the schools”….that was the suggestion put forward at one of our volunteer meetings.

“Umm ok” we all said tentatively “but what exactly does that involve?

“You can do whatever you want, the kids rarely get a chance to do things like that, they will love it!”

But since none of us had any previous experience and all confessed to not being “all that arty” we were not convinced and decided to have a Dry Run. This proved to be invaluable as we soon discovered some things were really not so easy to create.

It is however possible to get most things in Siem Reap these days so the sky is the limit. Big sheets of paper and card (1.5 metre by 1 metre), scissors, glue, staplers and a myriad of coloured paper/card can be bought from the stationary shops in Street 2 opposite the Provincial Hospital and next to all the pizza restaurants.

Chopsticks (in bundles of hundreds), straws, styrofoam plates, silver foil and many other wierd and wonderful resources can be acquired at the little Aladdins Cave between Sokimex petrol station and The Provincial Department of Planning Siem Reap, on Sivatta Street. Everything is sold in bulk but prices are incredibly cheap.

Psar Leu (the big market on Route 6 on the way towards the bus station) is another great source where we bought wool and material.

On the day we set up stations for each adult to manage, being;

• Masks (using card, feathers, glitter)
• Crowns and wands (using card, feathers, glitter, chopsticks, silver foil)
• Face puppets (using plates and chopsticks, card for the facial features and wool for the hair)
• Paper aeroplanes (and then get the kids to see who’s flies the furthest)
• Necklaces/bracelets (using beads, wool, string etc)
• Painting on the big sheets of paper (using fingers, potatoes, sponges, leaves and stones for different impressions.

We also tried face painting but have to confess this was not successful…….it was just too hot and the paint melted!

Other ideas include making gift cards, butterflies (to then be hung inthe classroom), kites and spiders. And as usual the internet is a wealth of ideas.

The biggest tip I would give is take as many templates and examples. As soon as you have shown the children what to do once, they are incredible and just get on with it. Our concern that the boys would not want to make crowns and wands was unfounded – they made the best, biggest and brightest crowns. I think the photos speak for themselves, the day was tiring but a huge success.