So our ministry this month was teaching English. We stayed
in the small village of Prakthai (I think that’s how you spell it) about an
hour outside of Phnom Pehn (Try saying that correctly the first time.) The
ministry that runs House of Love is connected to about two or three different
English schools, mostly run by members of the church.
When they told us we would be teaching English, I figured, “Ok,
no problem. How hard can it be to teach a language I’ve spoken my whole life?”
Turns out, VERY hard. I didn’t realize how many grammar
rules I didn’t know.
So we got up every morning at 4:12 (I hope you’ve been
paying attention) and got to the first School around 8am, where we taught until
12. Then we’d come back and eat lunch, and then some of us would teach the
local village children from 2-4, and then Lili and I would teach students at
another little school located in the village. This school was run by a local,
named Jack, who shared how he started this school to help the poorer families
in the village who couldn’t afford to go to school. Jack was an orphan, so he
knows how difficult it is to get an education without money. Right now he runs
the school by charging a small fee to the students, but he’d like to eventually
get sponsors so that he can open up the school to those families who can’t
afford to pay. I was teaching kids in the morning, but at night I was teaching
older students (ages 15-20) and they were probably my favorites.
When I had first arrived at the school in the morning, I
joined up with a teacher whose class consisted of 7-11 year olds. Basically,
when I showed up, he gave me the dry erase marker and said, “Here you go. Teach
whatever you want.” I freaked. Seriously, I panicked. That’s when I knew I wasn’t
really cut out to teach anything let
alone my native tongue.
I spent most of that morning praying to God and the Holy
Spirit, saying, “PLEASE give me some ideas of what to teach these kids, because
I have NO idea what I’m doing.”
The first couple of days were miserable. I dreaded getting
up every morning to teach, because I had absolutely no clue what these kids
knew, or how to begin to teach a foreign language. Mainly, their biggest problem seems to be Pronunciation, mostly because they are learning English from people who’s first language was Khmer, and I can tell you, there is just certain ways a person’s tongue doesn’t work. They have a seriously hard time pronouncing “Sh”, “Ch,”, “LL” and other fun words
For Example:
Me: “Say
Ship.”
Students: “Sip.”
Me: “No, Ship.
SHHHHHIP.”
Students: “SIIIIIIIIIIP”
Me: “SHIP!
SH! SH!!! SHIP SHIP! SHHHHHHHIP!”
Students: ” SSSSSSSSSSSIP!”
Me: “. . .
Okay let’s move on. Say Sun!”
Students: “Shun!”
Me: “Sigh.”
Students: “Sigh!”
Seriously, one of the teachers even had Alex (Who apparently has “perfect” pronunciation) Recite pages out of a book for hours. Kinda funny. Kinda boring.
In the end, I really think God heard that desperate plea,
because after a few days of misery, I found that I really started to enjoy it.
I tried to remember something I learned from my Bosses, Randall and Arinee,
that being, “If you’re having fun, then THEY are having fun.”
I found that to be true, because toward the end, I WAS
having fun, and I think I may have discovered a new way to teach English, at
least, basic English. To the point
that I’m kind of serious about writing a few books geared to a humorous
approach on teaching the two most important things kids need to know about. . .
English and Dinosaurs.
Here, let me show you!
So there you have it. I plan on writing many books, like teaching the alphabet using Dinosaur names and terms: “V is for Velociraptor, J is for Jurassic” and such things like that. I don’t know how successful they’d be, but honestly, I am doing it for the fun.
