Cambodian School Bells

aboutasiaschoolsblog — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 01:18:49 +0000

What is the school bell like in your country? In Cambodia, we can claim a variety. See below. Which one do you like best?

Some teachers award their student by assigning him/her to bang the school bell.

Another School Bell

What is your reaction to this bell?

Another show of school bell

Christmas is coming!

aboutasiaschoolsblog — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 04:27:05 +0000

Another year has gone by, and finally it’s Christmas time for the families to reunion again. We celebrate this year Christmas with our achievement of being able to reach out to 68 schools of around 37,000 students in total in Siem Reap Province alone. Hopefully with every given book, pen, or pencil, the students will be better encouraged to go to school, where their future door of escape from the hard work can be opened. Watch this 50 second video and please you accept our best regards.

[Our Adopted Schools.]

“It really is a must-do-before-you-die thing!”

aboutasiaschoolsblog — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:38:44 +0000

From Belgium, Tibi and Jan had spent two weeks working in a village 10 km from Siem Reap City. It does not sound far to you, but once you get on the bumpy (and muddy in the rainy season) road, it makes you feel like it was 20 km instead. Read below to learn about their experience.

” Hello everyone,

We have just finished working 2 months in the Phum Svay village school near Toek Vill, a village about 10km from Siem Reap. The result of this short volunteering stay is that we don’t want to leave and feel very sad to leave the children behind.

We arrived in Cambodia in the beginning of September and met with teacher Tola soon to see how we could help in the AboutAsiaSchool organisation. Out of the different options they have for you (from schools in the Siem Reap city to village schools) we chose to live and work in the Phum Svay village. So we were settling in the house (on stilts and as they say on the website “not for the fainthearted”) when after a few days we were told we couldn’t stay there. We decided with Mr. Tola to stay working in the same school, since we had done already a few days and got quickly attached to the children, and live in a guesthouse in Siem Reap city. This meant we were now commuting every day and thus a one hour bike ride to school (which is lovely because you see a lot of the community and get to know some people along the way).

The first days in the school the children are somewhat shy, but they open up quickly. And although there is a language barrier (their English is let’s say not fluent) it is hugely rewarding to try to communicate with them. The hilarious results our countless. Our first week, the official public school term hadn’t started yet, but the afternoon English lessons had. Therefore we couldn’t use the books they normally follow (the teacher were very strict on that ) and we had to improvise. This meant mostly playing games in English (just a little googling can help big time). It was an ideal way to get to know all the children in the school. After this first week the normal public school started and we could use the curriculum books they are used to. The children are divided by level and there is a clear schedule of what there is to learn every hour. This can be very helpful, but also a bit restricting although there still is plenty of time to play games that use the new words, grammar, etc… And let me tell you these children love playing games. I have never seen such enthusiasm and craziness during the simplest of games here. And it must be said that most children apply the same enthusiasm during the lessons as well. It can be extremely funny and touching to see them try so hard to get those funky English words out of their Khmer used mouths.

Tibi and Jan in their last day at Phum Svay

There were three lovely Cambodian volunteer teachers that normally do the English lesson in the school. The idea was that we would just help them giving the lessons, but it turned out the other way round. This is just because they are quiet insecure about their own English (just as we are by the way since we are not English native speaking either) and they just think you can do a better job than they can. This is obviously not true and we believe that it’s the interacting between the two that makes it a joyful experience for the children. That being said we had a swell time with Sechen, Pwong and Lida. They are very helpful also with the non-teaching related stuff.

So all-in all we had a wonderful time teaching in Cambodia and we can recommend everybody doing this. It really is a must-do-before-you-die thing!

Tibi and Jan “