Category: Reading Skills

Gift-Giving Speaking-Reading Lesson

20/12/2014

The BEA Advanced and Intermediate students had two Christmas lessons this week. It gave them a break from our regular curriculum, and it gave me a chance to be in the class with the kids and share part of my culture with them. For our second Christmas culture lesson, we learnt about gift-giving and the Christmas shopping season. The students were indeed surprised to find out that there is an entire "season" devoted to shopping in the U.S. and Canada! At the same time, the kids could see that gift-giving is also part of Cambodian culture for special times of the year, as it is in many other cultures.

As part of BEA's mission to empower teachers, please feel free to use any of our materials in your own classes, or adapt them to your own teaching environment. We'd love to hear back from you if you had any success with the lessons in your own classroom.

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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Christmas Symbols Speaking-Reading Lesson

20/12/2014

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We're definitely in full Christmas spirit these past few weeks at BEA. The staff decked out the library and classrooms with decorations, we've have a couple of arts & crafts activities, and just start a few Christmas lessons to give the kids a break from our regular curriculum. Instead of running things from the office this week, I got the chance to be back teaching for a little bit in the classrooms. It's always a little tricky to introduce cultural traditions from different countries, but I try to plan lessons in a way that connects "foreign" traditions to similar traditions in Cambodian culture. The reason is to show the kids that there are similarities among cultures, and these similarities can help understand us understand each other more easily. For my first Christmas lesson with the Intermediate and Advanced classes, we had a reading-speaking lesson on different types of Christmas symbols. It was quite amazing how the kids connected some of these symbols to Cambodian ones like the original Santa being similar to a monk -- someone who is a religious person who helps the poor!

Part of BEA's mission is to empower Cambodian teachers, so please feel free to use any of our materials and adapt them to your own teaching environment. We'd love to hear back from you if you had any success with the lessons in your own classroom.

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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Quiet Contemplation

13/10/2014

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This is one of the reasons why I love the BEA extensive reading program so much! For many of the BEA kids, it's the first time they get to read for pleasure. We're only into the second month of the first term, and students have settled into the library program. They even come early to get in some quiet reading time.

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Ready, Set, Read!

24/9/2014

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The BEA kids had a two-day library orientation on how to choose graded readers (books for second language learners) and how to borrow them from our library. When we first start in 2010, we had a mere 300 books in our collection, but now we have over 1000 for the students to choose from. For most of the BEA kids, this is the very first time to experience reading for pleasure and borrowing library books!!! If you'd like to know more about our reading program, you can check out our extensive reading section on our website.

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Library Orientation

12/9/2013

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The BEA kids finished up their library orientation last week. Now, they're familiar with the BEA library and are ready to start borrowing books. They'll be reading four graded readers during the semester and write book reports on two of them. For most of our new students, it's the first time they've ever used a library and borrowed book!

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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Library Program and Profile Design Project

9/9/2011

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Hi everyone,

Orientation week is almost over at BEA, but there’s still one more day to go and a lot more for BEA students to do. Orientation lessons have given us a chance to get to know our new students, as well as for them to become comfortable with their new school. Shally noticed in Wednesdays and Thursdays lessons that those students are fitting in well with our continuing students, but still seem a little unsure of who we are and what type of English language education they’ll be getting. Most of our new students have never even been in a building with more than one storey let alone a classroom with air-conditioning. Similar to last year, there is always a period of “accustomization” for the students.

Library Reading Program
On Tuesday, all of our continuing and new students were introduced to our library reading program. During the semester, students are required to read two graded readers on their own. These are books of varying genres that are specifically written for English language learners. As part of our language program, students have one reading lesson per week where they are taught reading strategies to help them understand a reading passage. Shally runs these classes during the semester and monitors the students' progress. In January, students will then participate in a one-week "Book Report" workshop where they will learn how to critically discuss their book and how to write a report about it. I'll be running this workshop while training Shally how to run it as well.

For our library orientation for the Basic course, I introduced the concept of graded readers and how to choose an appropriate level and genre, as well as how to borrow a book from the library. For the orientation for the remaining classes, Shally took over with the help of our librarian Srey Net. This is one of the most important aspects of BEA's teacher training. I will model a lesson, and then Shally will teach the remaining lessons while I observe or assist him. In this way, he'll be able to eventually run teacher training programs himself!

For the remaining part of each lesson, students got about 20 minutes to go through our collection and to note down some interesting titles to borrow from next week. If you would like to know more about our library program, you can view our guidelines at the end of today's posting.

Profile Design Project
In Wednesdays and Thursdays lessons, students got the chance to show off their artistic abilities in our Profile Design Project. This is a small two-day program in which students receive a photo of themselves and then design a small poster to put up in our library. Students got colored paper, markers and pencils crayons to make their posters. Unfortunately, many BEA students who attend public school do not have art as part of the school’s curriculum, so this introductory project is a chance for students to foster their creative talents. They also get to use their artistic talent in our task-based project program, but these require much more work and group cooperation. This small project is therefore a way to ease them into larger projects, which will demand more of their creativity throughout the semester. Furthermore, these profiles help make the students feel a part of BEA and that BEA belongs to them since they can display their work in our library. It’s also a great way for visitors to see our student body during visiting hours.

As usual, I was amazed at the students’ artistic talents, and would eventually like to offer a more permanent program in the future to help develop these talents. Many of the profiles had our bee logo while others had scenes of Angkor Wat and Cambodia’s natural beauty, such as its dense jungles and fresh-water lakes. Shally ran all of these lessons this year, which gave me time to get caught up on administrative work and pop into the classroom to take photos. I noticed that he was also making his own profile poster, which I’ll have to get a photo of later on today. As usual, he put my artistic skills to shame. As my students know very well, I couldn’t draw to save my life!!!

Donation from Mr. Bill McWhorter
We got some fantastic news yesterday about a donation. Mr. Bill McWhorter, the Chief Operating Officer at OCTG, sent us a very generous donation. We are so truly thankful for your generosity and for believing in BEA’s mission. Your support is giving the BEA kids the chance of a better future. A million thanks!!!

Facebook Page
We would also like to thank all of our Facebook friends for clicking “like” on our BEA page so that we could get our own username. Our page can now be viewed publically, and this will help get the word out about the BEA kids and our unique program. Thank you so much for taking the time to help us.

Back to the books…
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.

Library Reading Program
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Getting Ready for Registration

30/8/2011

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Hi everyone,

Just two days left before we hold registration for the 2011-12 school year! These past few days have just passed all too quickly, and I always wished we had more time to get everything ready.

School Visit and Donations
Shally and I were very happy to welcome Yusa Koizumi, and her husband, to BEA for a short visit this past Saturday. Yusa, is one of my close colleagues from Japan, and has been involved with BEA from the very start. In addition to running book-drives in Japan for us, she is also one of the board members of Bayon Japan, a non-profit organization set up in Japan to raise money for BEA, and has generously donated to this foundation over the past two years. She brought with her three big bags of graded readers and reference books for our library, as well as much-needed photo printing paper. We are so lucky to have her as one of our supporters! Thank you so much Yusa for all your time and effort!

This was the first time for Yusa to visit our school, however, not her first visit to Cambodia. She said she was quite surprised that we were able to get BEA up-and-running so quickly and at the progress our students had made in just a year. Afterwards, it was a quick and bumpy tour of Trapeang Sess, the village next to BEA and where our students live, and then off to dinner to finished the evening.

Registration
Over the weekend, Shally and I had to revamp our entire system for registration. Since it was our first time last year, we have definitely learnt from our mistakes and thin we've set up a fairly manageable system for this year. One of our biggest difficulties last year was that too many potential students were in the library on the ground floor, so it got pretty crowded (and quite noisy), which made it difficult for Shally to go through the pre-registration questionnaire with each student. Also, there were too many questions, so it took too long to do all the interviews.

This year, we've made up 35 blue cards (for boys) and 35 yellow cards (for girls), and each card is numbered from 1 to 70. When registration opens at 8:00am, our school assistants, Los and Srey Net, will hand them out to students as they come to the school. However, we're anticipating all of these numbers will be gone within the first 30 minutes. The students will then look at their numbered card, and find their interview time on a signboard posted outside, so cards numbered from 1 to 10 will be registered from 8:00 - 9:00am, 11-20 from 9:00 to 10:00am, and so on. In this way, students don't have to wait around all day, and can come back at their designated time. This will help with "crowd control" on the ground floor. Shally then will be able to do the interview with hopefully no interruptions.

Once students have finished their interview with Shally, they'll be sent up to me in our main classroom on the second floor. I'll complete the rest of the interview and then take their photo for their ID badge and our school files. We're keeping our fingers crossed that there'll be less chaos this year.

Library Program
One of the projects keeping me busy in the past few weeks has been setting up BEA's library program. In July, one of my students from Aoyama Gakuin Univeristy, Rie Shimada, helped set up our initial database of all the graded readers in our library. She trained Srey Net how to use Excel and how to enter all the book information. With these spreadsheets, I've come up with a numbering system so that we can lend books out to students and Srey Net will be able to keep stock of what's in our library. Yesterday, I went into the school to train Srey Net on the classification system, and the method for running the library in about six hours. On Thursday, Srey Net will finish labeling all the books, and placing them in their designated sections. As for graded readers, we now have a total of 302 books! A nice start for our library.

One of the changes I made to the curriculum this year included adding a graded reading program for all of our courses. Students will be required to read two graded readers, and then write a book report on one of them after the "Book Report" workshop in January. I'm really looking forwards to the students' reaction to this new program. More about this later on...

BEA Repairs and "Fancying-up"
Once again, Shally and Los were left with all of BEA's tidying up and repairs before the start of the semester. Shally had to call the plumber again to fix the ground floor sink for the bathroom. It has been "dangling" from the wall these past few months, and will fall of at any minutes, so that was the first repair in need. Shally was also back-and-forth from the locksmith to finalize the installation of our bicycle gates in front of the school. This will make our security guard's job a little easier, and prevent theft of our students bicycles. Finally, Shally had Los and some BEA volunteers take down most of the poster presentation projects in the library to make room for the news ones this year, and had them clean the entire school from top to bottom. I'm simply amazed at Shally's multi-tasking talents at times! We then ended our day with the monthly staff meeting at 7:30. It was a long, hard day.

Back to getting ready for the madness to begin...

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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Review Week / Lesson 3: Reading Lessons

16/2/2011

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Hi everyone,

I spent the morning planning Shally's reading lessons for this afternoon. We're in the last week of our first semester, so we're review some problem areas some of the students had during the semester. A common error I noticed with the basic classes was that they still have difficulty with using the auxiliary forms of "do / does" in simple present questions. I often heard questions, such as "Do she go to the market?", or answers like "She go to the market." I figured a review in this area would help remind students of the different forms.

I was able to find a short reading passage from a very useful site called "Handouts Online" that has a variety of lessons for different levels. However, the lessons are for those familiar with British and American society, so I often have to re-write parts of the lesson so that it is more appropriate for Cambodian students. I was running out of time because I had spent too long on planning the pre-intermediate lesson, so I kept the reading passage and added a vocabulary matching activity. The passage had words such as "a bowl of cornflakes" and "a slice of toast", which of course almost all of our students have never heard of. I've found that having the students match new vocabulary to pictures is the quickest way to introduce such cultural terms.

From Shally's observation notes, the matching activity was useful because he was able to avoid an endless barrage of vocabulary questions from students, which always happens in a reading class. Most of the students want to know every single word when they read, but I'm trying to get them into the habit that it's not necessary as long as you have the key vocabulary to understand the main ideas. If we have more money in our budget next year, I would really like to include dictionaries in the students' supply package. An Oxford pocket dictionary is only about $2.50 in the local books.

Anyways, the students in both basic classes were able to complete the grammar section where they had to write down the rule for using auxiliaries in simple present question forms. As usual, students spent most of their time on the speaking activity, which focused on switching between the use of "Do" and "Does" questions. Shally observed that students seemed to be using the forms more correctly. However, in the feedback sessions after the discussions, he noted that students often have difficulty reporting the main points from their partner's conversation. We'll have to teach the students how to give feedback in next semester's lessons.

For the pre-intermediate class, students also had a reading lesson based on the theme of "Happiness". Once again, I got the material from "Handouts Online", but had to rewrite most of the passage because it was laden with too many American idioms. As usual, I was hoping that I had planned a sufficient vocabulary building activity for the students before they started reading the passage. However, once again, students overwhelmed Shally with vocabulary questions. In the passage, most students know the majority of the vocabulary, but the vocabulary knowledge is vastly different from one student to the next. Ideally, I would have students do vocabulary preparation for homework, but it's still the issue of dictionaries. Shally observed that students were fully aware of the main ideas of the passage and could answer all the comprehension questions, but they still wanted to know every single word in the passage. In future reading lessons, I might break up the lesson over two days. The first lesson focusing on comprehension and the next on discussion.

The students were disappointed that they couldn't completely finish the discussion section, but they enjoyed learning about the different types of happiness. In all my years of teaching, I've never come across such a talkative class. I am almost tempted at times to simply tell the students to discuss their classroom tables and chairs, and then leave the classroom for the rest of the lesson. I'm know for sure that they would still be talking about the tables and chairs when I returned to the classroom.

While Shally was teaching this afternoon, I finished up grading all the final drafts for the second writing workshop. Once I get back to Japan, I'll start writing a journal article the different aspects of Cambodian writing style in English.

Back to the books,
Nicole

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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Gift-Giving Speaking-Reading Lesson

Christmas Symbols Speaking-Reading Lesson

Quiet Contemplation

Ready, Set, Read!

Library Orientation

Library Program and Profile Design Project

Getting Ready for Registration

Review Week / Lesson 3: Reading Lessons

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