Category: Intermediate Course

Highlights from 2013-14: Heading to the Olympics

22/8/2014

One of the most popular presentation themes that the BEA kids enjoy from year to year is on Olympic sports. Unfortunately, there is no official Olympic team that represents any of the Cambodia's most popular sports during the international event since there isn't enough government funding for sports. However, this doesn't stop the BEA kids from coming up with their own ideas about how Cambodian athletes could prepare for Olympic training and how they could win their event. For this year's presentations, the Intermediate EFL course students chose sports that included running, swimming and kickboxing. In addition to designing a poster, students had to prepare an interview between "sportscasters" and "athletes" for the presentation part of the project. Once again, the BEA kids got "gold medals" for all their great effort!

The Bayon English Academy (BEA) is an accredited NGO school that provides English language education, leadership, and job skills programs to underprivileged youth from well-trained teachers in a safe, clean and professional environment in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

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Highlights from 2013-14: Debate Lessons

22/8/2014

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As one way to help our BEA kids improve their confidence in themselves and their public speaking abilities, Teacher Shally added debate lessons to our Advanced and Intermediate EFL courses throughout the 2013-14 school year. With our debates, students argued their positions in teams while two moderators supervised their performance. The BEA kids have to defend their positions with reasons and examples, which helps them to develop their critical thinking skills in both Khmer and English. There were a wide range of topics that were debated in our Friday lessons, but one of the most memorable was the debate on city verses countryside life -- with life in the countryside being the winning position.

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Teacher Shally's Writing Workshops

29/5/2014

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Teacher Shally and his Advanced and Intermediate course students have just finished up their cover letting and resume writing workshop, which is part of BEA's Job Hunting Skills Program. During the past two weeks, Teacher Shally taught ten intensive writing classes that included how to describe educational experiences, qualifications and qualities, as well as the differences between resume formats between Cambodia and countries like the Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. By the end of the two-week workshop, students turned in their own cover letters and resumes, which is 10% of their final grade for the second semester.

As part of BEA's commitment to Cambodia's development in English language education, Nicole Takeda, BEA's executive director, is almost finished the school's first writing textbook that includes teacher-training lessons and student materials for Basic, Intermediate and Advanced courses. The textbook Cambodian content and is directly targeted towards Cambodian instructors that teach writing in university, public school or at NGO schools.

The Bayon English Academy (BEA) is an accredited NGO school that provides underprivileged youth with quality English language education and job skills in a safe, clean and professional environment in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

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Intermediate Course Poster Presentations

1/5/2014

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As part of BEA's job skills program, the Intermediate course students were busy with their poster presentations last week. For this project’s theme, students had to work as a group to design a resume for a student applying for an assistant manager's position. Before students broke off into their groups, they received two days of instruction on how to organize a resume and expressions for describing qualifications and experience. As usual, the BEA kids did a fabulous job working together and designing beautiful posters!

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Cambodian-Japanese Writing Exchange Program

17/9/2013

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For the second time this year, we kicked off its Cambodian-Japanese Writing Exchange Program between BEA and Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. The BEA students got their profiles of their Japanese partners, who are students in Nicole’s Integrated English III course. In Friday’s lesson, the BEA kids brainstormed ideas to write about for their first letter about their daily lifestyle and then got instruction on how to write their letters. Nicole collected all the letters today and her Japanese students will get them once she’s back on campus next Wednesday for the first day of the fall semester. Shally Toun, BEA’s managing director, will then take over the Cambodian side of the program. During the semester, students will exchange three letters on a designated theme and take part in classroom discussions on Cambodian and Japanese culture. By the end of 2013, over 250 students will have participated in this program since 2011!

The Bayon English Academy (BEA) is an accredited NGO school that provides underprivileged youth with quality English language education with professional teachers in a safe, clean environment in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

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BEA Writing Exchange Program

8/10/2011

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Hi everyone,

The floods have finally started to drain away, and life is slowly returning to normal in Siem Reap. September was a very difficult month for all of us, but here's hoping the floods will stay away for now.

We were back to the books this week after our one-week break for the Pchum Ben festival. It's back to work until our next long break in November for the Water Festival.

The Writing Exchange Program: In Japan
During the first week of the fall semester back in Japan, my students got their first letters from their Cambodian partners. In total, there are 104 students in four different students participating in this project. Students in BEA's Intermediate course are paired with my Integrated English Skill seminar course while BEA's Pre-Intermediate course are matched with my English Communication course.

Before my students got to read their letters, I prepared a 20-minute power point presentation to give my students some basic background information on education in Cambodia, BEA and the students’ lives. My students then got their letters and had the remaining class time to introduce their partner and discuss significant points with their groups.

In their written “reflections” after class about the lesson, almost all of my students commented that “I knew Cambodia was poor, but I didn’t know it was that poor.” Many of the students also expressed shame because they felt that they had taken for granted their educational opportunities in Japan. Most surprisingly, students said their partner’s letter has now motivated them to study harder and appreciate the chance they have at university to learn.

For homework, my students had to comment on their partner’s letter and write on the first theme: a self-introduction. I was quite impressed with the effort the Japanese students put into their letters. Many of them included photos and drawings from their lives, and many letters included “print club” stickers. These are tiny photos from automated booths that print out the photos on multi-colored backgrounds. You can often fit 5 people in these booths for group photos. When I first came to Japan many years ago, I used to frequent the game centers with these booth taking “print club” with my Japanese friends.

Deny’s partner, Mayuka, included photos from her summer vacation in Greech. Vannack’s partner, Shoki, included beautifully hand-draw Chinese calligraphy on traditional Japanese paper. Little did I know, Shoki is a calligraphy master!!

Writing Exchange Program: In Cambodia
In yesterday's lessons for the Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate courses, BEA students received their first letters from their Japanese writing partners. Shally and I have had to quite a bit of "cultural preparation" for this program. One of the challenges we had when the BEA students received the "profile cards" for their Japanese partner at the start of September was the large number of cultural-specific vocabulary. At the end of my semester in July, students in my English communication and Integrated Skills Seminar courses had to complete a one-page profile card - just some basic background information about themselves for the BEA students before they wrote their first letters.

During the introduction to this program, Shally and I spent most of our class time explaining this culture-specific vocabulary to the BEA students. Because of the age difference between my Japanese students and myself, I even found this quite challenging, especially since Japanese idols and fashion trends change so rapidly that it's impossible to keep up with at times.

Since I'm back in Japan now, I didn't want to leave Shally completely only own to figure out this cultural content on his own. Last week, before I sent of the letters from my Japanese students, I spent an evening trekking through Tokyo getting as many postcards as possible that included all the cultural vocabulary my students included in their letters. To my embarrassment, after 14 years in Japan, I didn't have a SINGLE Japanese postcard in my collection of picture files!!!

Once Shally received the letters and postcard packets, we had one of our skype training sessions. We brainstormed ideas how to introduce cultural concepts to the BEA students and then went through the place names and things pictured in the postcards. Shally was then able to plan his lesson introducing these terms so that the students would recognize them when they read them in their letters.

In yesterday’s lessons, each group of students received one of these postcard packets and got 20 minutes to comment and ask questions about them. Shally then instructed them to note these terms when they came across them in their letters. It’s always much easier to visualize a concept rather than spend time explaining it.

Shally commented that the BEA kids were really happy to read their partners’ letters and were excited to discuss them in their groups. For homework, they have to respond to their partner’s letter and also write on the second theme: daily lifestyle. The writing exchange program has gotten off to a great start on both sides, and students in both countries are now anxiously awaiting their next round of letter.

The Bayon English Academy (BEA) is an NGO school that provides underprivileged youth with quality English language education in a safe, clean environment in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

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Highlights from 2013-14: Heading to the Olympics

Highlights from 2013-14: Debate Lessons

Teacher Shally's Writing Workshops

Intermediate Course Poster Presentations

Cambodian-Japanese Writing Exchange Program

BEA Writing Exchange Program

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