A week into our month here in Cambodia, we were asked if anyone would want to go to a nearby village and teach kids English for two hours a day Monday thru Thursday. As soon as the offer was on the table, I couldn’t help but grab it. BUT wait…I didn’t want to be in a classroom again…I didn’t want to teach anymore. I was a little shock at how much I desired to go to this village. So my thought process was that I still love kids and love being around them…but it wouldn’t look anything like the states and it wouldn’t be that much responsibility. Here is an opportunity to go and hang out with kiddos for 2 hours a day! It’s the perfect plan!
So three of my teammates and I jump into a van and traveled about 30-40ish minutes to this village. The first time we got there…we just want to observe the class and see how the teacher teaches and where these kids are at. It was an instant attraction to the school and we jump right in. We decided we wanted to come back as many times as possible and that we were going to split the class, which had about 40ish kids enrolled, in half. Our plan was to have a class where the kids who are actually getting the lessons to have a class that offers them more of a challenge and then to have a class for those students who are struggling to have more one on one time. And with there being 4 of us…it was perfect! It was like God had it planned out all along!!!
So my teammate, Karen and I joined forces and took the class that the students understood the lessons and needed more of a challenge. The kids ranged from 5 years old to 9ish and we had about 20 kids. I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into or what we were going to do. We had very limited resources and the major obstacle was that these kids didn’t speak English and we don’t speak Kahmi!
Thankfully we had a translator for each class. Some were better than others…some had a hard time understanding English themselves but we were grateful for them none the less. The best part about our translators was that they were college students from the church and this village we went to everyday was their home village.. This was the school they went to and now they were helping us teach the kids! They were each so excited to tell us that this was their village. You could see the joy in their eyes as we got to see where they were from.
So even though I thought I was never going to have to do another lesson plan, I found myself planning lessons with Karen every day. The first week we learned the letter “Z” and the second week we learned the letter “Q.” Just so you know we didn’t pick those letters…it just happened to be the letters that were next in their books. So what do you do with a class of Cambodian students…. Well we worked on pronouncing the letters, the sound of the letters, we had vocab words for each word and we learned how to spell the words. We also reviewed the other vocab words they had already learned, and we reviewed the alphabet every day. We also added in learning the shapes and colors. We did this by playing a lot of games and screaming matches as they repeated each word.
As a teacher…you really aren’t SUPPOSE to have favorites but secretly you do. My favorite kids were a group of boys that sat in the front row every day. They were sassy and had so much spunk. The boys and I would be able to understand each other even though we had no idea what we were actually saying. I would walk into the classroom and they would yell “Ashley.” They would copy my movements and tried to make me laugh every second. At times they would annoy me with their jokes but I would look up and see their faces and just melt! They were so smart and challenged themselves to make sure they always had the right answer
I fell in love with the class. I looked forward to going to the village every day and to seeing my class. I was sure that I was going to be a blessing to these kids and was going to be able to teach them so many things.
With never having a consistent translator, the kids and us learned how to communicate with each other in other ways. By the end of our week, the kids understood what we were asking them to do most of the time and they were actually learning. I would point to myself and they would yell “ASHLEY”….i would point to Karen and they would yell “Karen”….i would point to the letter or word on the board and they would yell out the word…I would point to my lips and they would yell out the sound of the letter! They were getting the spellings and were reading the words.
I was blown away!
Our biggest challenge and goal was for them to learn their colors and shapes in English. It was like they just didn’t get it. We made flash cards, we drew on the board…I made a fool of myself trying to get them to understand. They would laugh but still struggled. I really wanted them to get it but didn’t think it would happen. And wouldn’t you know it….our last day of class they were able to say every color and every shape without any help!
AHHHH…they are so smart!!!
On the last day we wanted to make sure the kids knew that we thought they were so special and how proud we were of them. We order cupcakes and had a celebration of our time together. As we were passing the treats out, I realized that yet again I was thankfully that God is in charge. At the beginning of all of this I thought I was going to be the teacher but I learned that these kids taught me so much more than I ever could.
They taught me that it didn’t matter if we didn’t understand each other verbally; we could still love each other. They didn’t expect me to be anybody other than a friend. Half of these kids came to school didn’t have shoes on, they had dirty clothes on and some of them didn’t even have any school supplies to bring to school. A lot of their parents don’t even expect them to finish school. But still they came everyday…willing and ready to learn from some crazy American girls. They always had smiles on their faces and left just as happy as they came. They met every goal and learned the lessons we tried to teach them and they really tried hard to learn.
I could write page after page about my experience in the village. This was my favorite ministry on the race so far. I wish I could bring each one of you to come and meet my class with my sassy boys. I have left part of my heart here in Cambodia and I am excited and praying that these kids do finish school and turn their lives to Christ! I know God is moving in this village.
I am so proud to have been their teacher for 2 short weeks!!
