Hi everyone,
Shally and I have been incredibly busy since I got back to Siem Reap last week, and with BEA going into its third school year this September, there seems to be even less time to update our website and the blog. Anyways, we have a lot of news to share with you!
BEA’s New Teacher:
Shally’s workload as head teacher and managing director has been overwhelming this past year, especially since he had to teach four classes every day. He had almost 200 teaching days, which meant he taught 800 lessons covering our Basic, Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate courses. We decided a few months ago to hire a new teacher to help decrease his teaching workload so that he can have more time for managing the school. Last week, we accepted teaching applications from our Intermediate course students.
We thought it would be best to hire in-house since the new teacher would be familiar with our programs as a student. After reviewing the applications, we then chose four of them to come for interviews with an interview in Khmer with Shally and an interview in English with myself. Both Shally and I decided that Rithea Leang Reth was the most outstanding out of all the applicants, and gave her the position. It was such a difficult decision for both of us, but we’re hoping once we can expand over the next few years, we’ll be able to hire more of our students as teachers.
Rithea told me yesterday that she was so happy and proud to be working for BEA. When she saw our Facebook announcement, she showed it to her parents and her mother kissed her because she was so proud of her. Rithea is planning to work for BEA for about two years, and then she would like to get her university degree in business administration at an overseas university.
Course Changes & Teacher Training
Because of our new teacher, we’ve had to make some changes to our 2012-13 school year courses. Since BEA has a very unique and demanding program, it’ll take at least six months to a year to train our new teacher, so we needed to re-organize our teaching schedule to accommodate teacher training. From September, Shally will be teaching the Intermediate (5:00-6:00pm) and Advanced (6:00-7:00pm) courses. Our new teacher will start out with just one course for the year, the Pre-Intermediate (4:00-5:00pm) course.
Rithea’s formal teacher-training will start run from August 20-29 in which she’ll learn about BEA’s programs, theoretical and practical components of teaching, and teaching practices with small classes of volunteer BEA students. These teaching practices will prepare her for her own classes starting in September. She’ll get about 25 hours of formal instruction during these two weeks of training. Once she starts her own course in September, I’ll be team-teaching and lesson planning with her for about three weeks. In addition, Rithea will also be assisting Shally with his Intermediate course from 5:00-6:00pm. In this way, she’ll be able to observe two experienced teachers in action. Moreoever, Rithea will continue her English studies in the Advanced course from 6:00-7:00pm.
Once I head back to Japan at the end of September, I’ll be continuing Rithea’s teacher-training with skype sessions 2-3 times per week. Shally has been participating in this online training program since we first opened the school in 2010. I’ll be continuing this with both of them with Rithea’s pre-intermediate course and Shally’s advanced course during the school year. At the 2012 CamTESOL conference, Shally and I discussed this type of training in our presentation on Teaching Methodologies in the Cambodian Classroom. If you’re interested in our teaming teaching and online training, you can see our process in the diagrams below.
Anyways, there is still more news to tell about TOEIC testing and registrations, but I’ll save that for a later posting.
Back to the books….
The Bayon English Academy (BEA) is an accredited NGO school that provides underprivileged youth with quality English language education in a safe, clean environment in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Shally and I have been incredibly busy since I got back to Siem Reap last week, and with BEA going into its third school year this September, there seems to be even less time to update our website and the blog. Anyways, we have a lot of news to share with you!
BEA’s New Teacher:
Shally’s workload as head teacher and managing director has been overwhelming this past year, especially since he had to teach four classes every day. He had almost 200 teaching days, which meant he taught 800 lessons covering our Basic, Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate courses. We decided a few months ago to hire a new teacher to help decrease his teaching workload so that he can have more time for managing the school. Last week, we accepted teaching applications from our Intermediate course students.
We thought it would be best to hire in-house since the new teacher would be familiar with our programs as a student. After reviewing the applications, we then chose four of them to come for interviews with an interview in Khmer with Shally and an interview in English with myself. Both Shally and I decided that Rithea Leang Reth was the most outstanding out of all the applicants, and gave her the position. It was such a difficult decision for both of us, but we’re hoping once we can expand over the next few years, we’ll be able to hire more of our students as teachers.
Rithea told me yesterday that she was so happy and proud to be working for BEA. When she saw our Facebook announcement, she showed it to her parents and her mother kissed her because she was so proud of her. Rithea is planning to work for BEA for about two years, and then she would like to get her university degree in business administration at an overseas university.
Course Changes & Teacher Training
Because of our new teacher, we’ve had to make some changes to our 2012-13 school year courses. Since BEA has a very unique and demanding program, it’ll take at least six months to a year to train our new teacher, so we needed to re-organize our teaching schedule to accommodate teacher training. From September, Shally will be teaching the Intermediate (5:00-6:00pm) and Advanced (6:00-7:00pm) courses. Our new teacher will start out with just one course for the year, the Pre-Intermediate (4:00-5:00pm) course.
Rithea’s formal teacher-training will start run from August 20-29 in which she’ll learn about BEA’s programs, theoretical and practical components of teaching, and teaching practices with small classes of volunteer BEA students. These teaching practices will prepare her for her own classes starting in September. She’ll get about 25 hours of formal instruction during these two weeks of training. Once she starts her own course in September, I’ll be team-teaching and lesson planning with her for about three weeks. In addition, Rithea will also be assisting Shally with his Intermediate course from 5:00-6:00pm. In this way, she’ll be able to observe two experienced teachers in action. Moreoever, Rithea will continue her English studies in the Advanced course from 6:00-7:00pm.
Once I head back to Japan at the end of September, I’ll be continuing Rithea’s teacher-training with skype sessions 2-3 times per week. Shally has been participating in this online training program since we first opened the school in 2010. I’ll be continuing this with both of them with Rithea’s pre-intermediate course and Shally’s advanced course during the school year. At the 2012 CamTESOL conference, Shally and I discussed this type of training in our presentation on Teaching Methodologies in the Cambodian Classroom. If you’re interested in our teaming teaching and online training, you can see our process in the diagrams below.
Anyways, there is still more news to tell about TOEIC testing and registrations, but I’ll save that for a later posting.
Back to the books….
The Bayon English Academy (BEA) is an accredited NGO school that provides underprivileged youth with quality English language education in a safe, clean environment in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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