Category: Registration

Available Places in BEA's Advanced English Language Course!

27/8/2014

For our 2014-15 school year, we still have 6 places left in our Advanced English Language Course. If you think you have a good level of English and would like to improve it, please come to BEA for an interview on August 27, 28 or 29 from 3:00 – 5:00pm. To study at BEA, you need to be Cambodian and come from a poor family (e.g. your parents makes less than $80/month).

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.

0 Comments

Registration for BEA's 2014-15 School Year

26/8/2014

0 Comments

We did it! All the BEA directors and staff made it through our two-day registration for the 2014-15 school year, which will be year number five for us!!! As we've done in the past, we open our registration to all underprivileged youth living in the villages outside the Siem Reap city center. This year, we had over 200 youth lined up along the main entrance of BEA waiting for an interview appointment time card. Registration didn't start until 8am, but the line started from 6:30am. Once we give out the appointment cards, applicants returned at their designated time to complete an application form and two interviews, one in Khmer and the other in English. Those that passed the two interviews were then registered as a new student. By the end of our registration, we had 83 new students who will join our 70 returning students from last year, with almost 60 percent of our students as girls. We'll be starting classes on Monday, September 1, but before then, we'll be buzzing around with last minute preparations for the first day of school!

0 Comments

Getting Ready for Registration 2014

24/8/2014

0 Comments

Just one more day, and it's the start of our registration for the 2014-15 school year. The BEA directors and staff have been buzzing around this weekend with last-minute preparations for one of our most hectic times of the year. We were kept busy with organizing paperwork, updating databases, preparing files, finalizing inventory, attending staff meetings, and of course, making sure the school is spotlessly clean. This year, we have 84 places available at BEA for our one-year program that includes English language instruction, job-hunting seminars and self-development workshops. As usual, we welcome all youth between the ages of 12 to 19 from backgrounds of extreme or moderate poverty -- meaning that their families make less than US$80/month. We never know what to expect from year to year, but we do expect another line up of about 200 children waiting outside our front doors by the time we arrive tomorrow morning at 7:00am. We hope there won't be too many tears this year once we run out of places for our program.

0 Comments

BEA's 2014-15 Open Registration for New Students

21/8/2014

0 Comments

Ready for the Big Day

6/9/2013

0 Comments

Hi everyone!

It’s been an incredibly hectic few weeks at BEA before the start of the 2013-14 school year! Shally, BEA' managing director, handled our big move with true finesse. He's truly a man of all talents from plumber to carpenter to electrician. In addition, he also renewed BEA's accreditation and submitted all of our certificates to the Ministry of Education for signing. As for myself, I've been drowning in the usual paperwork dealing with all the teaching schedules, curriculum revisions, administrative training and inventory. Nevertheless, everyone and everything has come together for our first day of classes!

The Big Move
Our unexpected move was a big shock for us – our landlord had promised to renew out rental agreement the month before, but then went back on his work and told us we had one month to leave our building! Fortunately, Shally was able to find a similar building for us. We were quite lucky since “corner” lots are hard to come by in Borey Bremey – a small neighborhood with apartment complexes just on the outskirts of Trapeang Sess Village. We needed to stay in the same area since most of the BEA kids live in the nearby village. The total cost of the move was just under $2500 US – money we didn’t have. Fortunately, my parents, David and Zaiga Dewar, donated this amount so that we’d have enough for our three months deposit. We were paying $340 US in our old building, but rent prices have gone up over the past three years, so we now are paying $400 US in our new building. As usual, the BEA kids were a great help in getting us settled in. Many of our kids have shown up these past few weeks to help with cleaning and decorating.

The New Classroom
Although it’s a bit of a financial risk, we’ve decided to expand the number of courses we offer at BEA. Sarith, one of our English language instructors, will have a full-course load this year. She went through my intensive one-month teacher training program in February-March 2013 and then on-the-job training with Shally for six months with our Pre-Intermediate English language course during the 2012-13 school year. Now, she’s ready for three courses on her own. She’ll be teaching the Basic and Pre-Intermediate course, and in charge of 86 students. Nevertheless, I’ll be in her classroom for team teaching sessions before I head back to Japan at the end of September. Afterwards, Shally will take over team teaching with her until the start of January. Shally, as usual, is in charge of daily operations, managing staff, student counseling, and teaching the Intermediate and Advanced courses.

Registration
Since we expanded the number of courses this school year, we ran a two-day registration from August 30-31 to handle the additional applicants. This year’s registration was definitely the smoothest one to date. We’ve definitely learnt a lot from our past three registrations. This year we spent more time screening the applicants to make sure that they did indeed come from backgrounds of extreme or moderate poverty, which means that their parents’ monthly income is less than $80 US. There were a few parents from wealthy families who showed up and demanded that we take their children. Despite explaining our mission and recommending other schools, one parent even said “Why should I pay when I can get it for free from an NGO.” To put it in more relevant terms, it would be similar to giving food stamps to someone who makes $100 000 US per year!!!

Despite the half-day power outage on the first day of registration, we were able to register a total of 137 students for the 2013-14 school year!

In just a few hours, we’ll be welcoming our new and returning students to their first day of classes at BEA! Once again, I’m hoping for organized chaos rather than complete madness…and, of course, for the power to stay on this afternoon.

Into the new school year!

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.

0 Comments

BEA's 2013-14 Registration

2/9/2013

0 Comments

We made it through two days of open registration from August 30-31. We added a new classroom, so we had 107 seats available for study this year, which means this year's registration was much busier than the ones in the past. So far, we have 120 students registered for the new school year, but a few more students will be accepted over the next few days before the first day of classes on September 5. This year's registration went quite smoothly and most students left with smiling faces after gaining a seat at BEA.

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.

0 Comments

Pre-Registration for the 2013-14 School Year

27/8/2013

0 Comments

Shally Toun and Nicole Takeda, the BEA directors, had an incredibly busy day with pre-registration for our returning BEA students for the 2013-14 new school year. At times, the paperwork is overwhelming! Nicole spent her morning preparing the final grade reports for the students and taking care of inventory while Shally spent his afternoon registering students for the new school year and confirming family names before our certificates are sent to the printers and then to the Ministry of Education for signing! Our open registration starts this Friday, August 30 and will run for two days!

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.

0 Comments

53 New Students Registered

3/9/2011

0 Comments

Hi everyone,

BEA welcomed 53 new students to our school on Thursday, September 1. We now have 93 BEA kids who are early waiting to start classes from this Monday. It was a 5:30am start on Thursday to do a final check of all our documents before I set out to BEA to meet Shally and our staff at 7:30am. When I arrived at BEA, there were already over 150 students who had been waiting well before 7 o'clock to get one of the interview time slot cards. I had expect quite a few students to be waiting before the opening of registration, but I definitely didn't expect such a crowd.

The Registration Numbering System
Overall, our registration process went according to plan, and it was without any of the chaos that we encountered last year. The main reason for this is because we developed a interview numbering system so that we wouldn't have our library overflowing with potential BEA students.

Once registration opened, Shally explained the procedure to all of those waiting. First of all, they had to line-up into two groups: one line for girls and the other for boys. Srey Net, our school librarian and my assistant for the day, handed out evenly-numbered blue cards to the girl. Los, our school's assistant, gave oddly-numbered yellow cards to the boys. In this way, both the boys and girls would have a fair chance at getting a place at BEA.

One of the problems we had last year for registration was that we didn't have an equal ration of boys to girls in our courses. The boys slightly outnumbered the girls. In order to balance this out, we reserved places for girls in each course. For example, in our Intermediate course, we had 10 boys and 6 girls continuing from last year. Therefore, we kept 6 spots for girls and only 2 for the boys, which would give us a gender-balanced classroom of 12 boys and 12 girls.

Once potential students got their cards, they had to check the notice board for their interview time. Cards 1 through 10 would come from 8:00-9:00, cards 11-23 would come from 9:00-10:00, and so on. Students could then return for their interview time later in the day rather than waiting around for hours. Because of this, our security guard, Net, had a much easier job monitoring the 10 students in the library and the bicycles outside the school.

Registration with Shally
After the potential student arrived for his/her interview time, Shally called each one for an interview. First, he gave a short explanation about BEA to the student and then assessed his/her English level. Once he determined the level, either Basic, Pre-Intermediate or Intermediate, he asked the student if he/she could come at the designated course time. Once this was finalized, he completed the first part of our school's data base, which included questions about date of birth, education and reasons for study. Shally then gave them a colored-coded course card and sent upstairs to complete the second part of the registration with me.

Registration with Nicole
The reason we divided the interview process into two parts was to decrease the interview time with Shally. Last year, some interviews took as long as 20 minutes, which meant students had to wait even longer for their interview. Both Shally and I were working on the same data base spreadsheets, so at the end of the day, all we had to do was merge them together.

For the second part of the interview, I asked students for their place of birth, the address, and information about their parents. The reason why I got the place of birth and address questions is that they take the longest to answer because students in most cases don't know how to spell Cambodian place names in English. Giving me these questions allowed Shally to process the students much more quickly this year. I also had Deny working with me during the day to help with interpreting for the basic level students. Students then got their photo taken for their ID badges and for school projects. Finally, they were give a "reminder card" telling them when to come to their first class on September 5.

Library Program Training
Between student interviews, I was also training Srey Net, our school's librarian, on our library program. She spent the entire day processing all of our graded readers, which consisted of placing pockets and cards in the back of each card, and making book column labels. We'll have our library up and running by the first day of class. Students will also receive a "library program orientation" lesson during the first week of classes.

New Students
By the time four o'clock rolled around, we had registered 53 new students to BEA. We now have a total of 93 students for the 2011-12 school year, with 43 of those continuing from last year. Both Shally and I are so very forward to our second year at BEA. We definitely met some "superstars" during registration, and can't wait to help them learn.

Now, the hard work begins...

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.

0 Comments

Getting Ready for Registration

30/8/2011

1 Comment

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.

1 Comment

Available Places in BEA's Advanced English Language Course!

Registration for BEA's 2014-15 School Year

Getting Ready for Registration 2014

BEA's 2014-15 Open Registration for New Students

Ready for the Big Day

BEA's 2013-14 Registration

Pre-Registration for the 2013-14 School Year

53 New Students Registered

Getting Ready for Registration

Blogger

Archives

Categories