Preparing to teach in Cambodia

Type: article

Lynda Ross starts a new teaching diary with an entry about her preparations for teaching voluntarily in Cambodia.

My friend and I are about to start a six month voluntary placement in Siem Reap, starting 1st October 2007. We will be teaching English to street children and orphans. At least, that’s what we thought we would be doing until recently, but the remit has become a lot broader. Let me introduce the two of us properly and give you some background to our trip.

I have worked in education (as a secondary school geography teacher) and social housing over the past 20 years. Gill has gained a wide range of skills and experience working in the supported housing / care sector for 20 years. In 2005 we both decided to take a career break and went travelling for a year. During this trip we visited Cambodia and our experience there convinced us to complete a Teaching English as a Second Language course in the UK, and return to Cambodia as soon as possible. In 2006 we both received a CELTA – ESOL Language Teaching qualification from Oxford House College in Central London.

We spent a lot of time investigating organizations before making a decision about who we were prepared to approach for voluntary positions. Many organizations charge volunteers a lot of money and very little of this goes to the community in which you would be working. The Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that we will be working for in Siem Reap is called Globalteer. Their philosophy is very much about supporting local staff and creating systems and services that will be sustainable at a local level.

The work Globalteer does in Cambodia includes a free education programme, the management of orphanages and a day centre for street children.

As I stated earlier, the remit for our voluntary placement in Siem Reap now involves much more than simply supporting local teaching staff in the school. The increase in human trafficking in the area means that the street children are facing increasing danger. We have been asked to develop policies and procedures for use within the school, orphanages and the day centre. This work will include teaching the children about the dangers they may face from tourists as well as locals. There is also a lot of training to be completed with the staff in all the schemes.

Cambodia has one of the lowest adult literacy rates in Asia. The Khmer Rouge put anyone suspected of having an education to death, thus devastating the numbers of teachers in the country. Today 80% of Cambodia’s primary school teachers have only attended lower secondary school. If you add the lack of resources to this, our aim to support local teaching staff in schools will be a far greater task than we initially envisaged. What Cambodia does have, however, is a population who are desperate to learn, not only in their own language, but also in English. There is a strong culture of self-improvement amongst Cambodians, and they are fully aware that the key to getting on in the world is knowledge of the English language. English not only dominates commerce but also tourism, the country's most rapidly growing industry. 

As you can gather, I am at the start of what will hopefully be a productive and enjoyable journey.

I have agreed to write a monthly update for onestopenglish and would welcome any suggestions for teaching materials and ideas to help us overcome any barriers we may encounter. Please visit the onestopenglish forum to give any feedback or suggestions.

Best wishes,

Lynda Ross
Sept 2007