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Its the middle of November now, almost the end of my third month on the Race. As my time in Cambodia is coming to a close, one question keeps echoing in my mind- “What am I gonna do when I get home?” I’ve asked the Lord a few times, and He always tells me the same thing- to prepare for going to college somewhere next year, and to be ready to throw all my plans away for where He calls me. Its not a very clear path, but in that process I have been applying to colleges and setting myself up for school next year.
My original plan was to go to school to become an English teacher in America, and so far thats still my plan when I get home. The funny thing is, I think the best experience I could have for teaching English in the States is to teach English overseas. I’ve had to learn how to teach English to people who don’t just “know English” and I’ve learned a few things along the way. Here are five things I’ve learned as an English teacher teaching Khmer students.
1. Never teach alone
There are few things more terrifying than trying to teach students English who don’t know any English, especially when you are alone. You need someone to bring more ideas to the table, someone to laugh off the weird moments with, and someone to help keep you sane as you face these crazy children. Right now I teach two classes, one with my teammate Jaci and one with my teammate Paige. Jaci is patient and brings a calming presence, even when she is freaking out. Together she and I teach a preschool class where we sing songs and teach until the kids lose focus (which doesn’t take long at all). In the evenings I teach with Paige. She is vibrant and exciting, able to think up ideas on her feet. We teach middle schoolers and high schoolers complex English concepts that can be hard to put into words, but we always have our translator So Phea to help us through.
I would be a basket case without my teammates teaching by my side, and I am so grateful for their hearts for the kids.
2. All children are crazy
Without exception. In my afternoon class the kids always climb on me and run all over the place. Some of them pinch and bite, some scream and giggle really loud. A few even tell me their secrets in Khmer (I think its because they know I’ll keep them very secret). Since these kids are learning how to write, I will sometimes write down notes for them in their notebooks. Clock faces, the weather, letters, whatever they’re learning that day. Every time I do this to help one student, five students throw their journals onto my lap. They want so much love that they’ll take it in any form, even in silly drawings for their notes. Almost all of them ask me to pick them up all the time, and while they don’t know manners very well, I can always see the word “please?” in their eyes.
My evening class is crazy in a different way. For some reason my class thinks that Americans really love every mainstream song in existence. “Shape of You”, “Havana”, “See You Again”, any song that has been overplayed on the radio in the last five years. The students try to be cool by playing these songs in front of Paige and I. Neither one of us like mainstream radio music, but the students don’t know that. This class also takes advantage of the fact that Paige and I don’t know Khmer. They gossip, talk, and even yell in Khmer whenever we teach. I don’t know what they’re saying, but I know its about us so I pretend its all good things.
3. Patience is more than a virtue
Teaching English as a second language is hard, especially when you don’t know the students’ first language. I have to review concepts with my students day after day. In my preschool class, Jaci and I sing the same songs every day. We teach a lot of the same topics every day. This week I had to sit down with my student Set (one of my favorites) to teach him how to write. It was a very slow process of me holding his hand as he traced letters on a piece of paper. He wanted to give up, so I began to make sound effects as he traced. By the time he finished tracing he was laughing and smiling, but I had to sit with him through fifteen minutes of moaning and groaning.
My other class isn’t easy to teach. They like to talk a lot and have a hard time understanding what we’re trying to teach them. Honestly, English is a really hard language, and every day I learn a little bit more why. There are so many rules with so many exceptions. See, as a seasoned English speaker I know what “sounds right”, but you can’t teach that to someone who is learning English. Just as I needed to be taught how things are “suppose to sound” in high school Spanish, so I have to teach my students what “sounds right” in English. That alone is a very hard concept, and I wish I knew how to teach that idea better.
Teaching requires a patience I have never understood until I had to exercise it almost every day. I have to remind myself that my students (and I) are just doing the best we can.
4. Everything is funny
The best way to combat a classroom of Khmer students is with humor. Think about it: my teammates and I are thousands of miles from home teaching students who don’t know English how to speak English in our language of English. It sounds like a hopeless situation, or like a good opportunity for a hearty laugh. We don’t know what our students are talking about half the time. Sometimes they do the most random things and we usually have no idea why. Khmer teachers like having English people teach because we are able to pronounce the words better and because we know what “sounds right” (a lot of Khmer teachers are still English students themselves, so we help them as best as we can). Jaci and I have been teaching our students sun, cloud, moon, rain, rainbow, and lightning all this last week. Somehow they mix up cloud and moon, even though we draw them out. We tried (without a translator) to show them the clouds and sun outside, and all the students ran off to play. And you know what? After trying (and failing) to rally the troops, we just laughed. We watched them play and discover the world around them. We laughed at the way they would talk about secrets we’ll never know.
Paige and I laugh at our class’s idea of American music. The girls in our class were learning how to do a traditional Khmer dance. We tried and failed, so we just laughed it off. There are hard days in a teacher’s life. Sometimes your students won’t listen no matter how interesting you are. Sometimes the students do things that make you question what could possibly be going through their brains. Sometimes all you want to do is go home to your bed and sleep the day away, but you don’t. You stop, look at the scene around you, look at your faithful teammate’s funny expression, and just laugh. Jaci and I laugh at the funny little things our preschoolers do. Paige and I laugh at each other’s handwriting (I laugh at the way she misspells words). We keep our class light, because God didn’t call us across the world to be angry and grumpy. He called us here to be the light, and we love it.
5. You cannot escape your students’ love
There has not been a day where my students haven’t showered me with love. In my preschool class the students always run up to me yelling “Teacher! Teacher!”. They hug my legs and ask me to carry them everywhere. They ask me to draw for them and give them high fives and climb on my back when I’m sitting down. Each day Jaci and I get a fifteen minute break, and our students usually spend that time getting food and hanging out with us. Sometimes it can be hard to pour out our love for them every day, but then we remember why we’re here in Cambodia. These kids want nothing more than to love and be loved by me every day, and each day I fall more in love with them.
My evening class is full of a different kind of love. My girls never stop telling me that I’m beautiful because I’m white, so I constantly tell them that they’re beautiful because they are children of God. I pray that someday they’ll believe me. My middle school and highs cool students want just as much love from me as my preschoolers. Thats why they play popular American music and offer us food and talk with us whenever they get the chance.
No matter what I do, I cannot escape the love of my students. I cannot run from the love they ask me to give them in return, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have come to love being a teacher, I love all my students, and the idea that I’ll be leaving Cambodia in three weeks for Africa is tearing me apart. But, until then I’ll be here in Kampot, Cambodia teaching kids the different between clouds and the moon, and why adjectives can become adverbs if you as -ly (except when the word is an exception).
I’ll be here doing the Lord’s work, because thats what I’ve come here to do.
