Category: Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day

14/2/2014

Sending out lots of love and sunshine to all of our supporters from the BEA staff and students. We’d also like to send out a very special thank you to all of those who donated and helped with our December-January fundraisers. Thank you for your continued support to help our Cambodian kids to learn from dedicated teachers who give each and every one of them lots of love and support, and the skills, to help them succeed in their future.

Enjoy our Walking on Sunshine video starring Shally, BEA's managing director in the yellow suit, and the BEA staff: Sreynet, our librarian in the green suit; Sarith, our teacher for the Basic and Pre-Intermediate courses in green, Chieu, our school assistant in purple, and Dany in blue, our assistant librarian!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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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Thank you Yusa!

14/2/2014

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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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Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Dewar!

14/2/2014

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Valentine's Day 2012

15/2/2012

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Hi everyone!

Happy Valentine's Day from the BEA kids and staff! It was another busy day at BEA today, especially since it was Valentine's Day and the start of student conferences.

Valentine's Day Activities:
This year, I spent a lot more time planning our holiday lessons, which took almost 6 hours this morning! The planning itself wasn't that challenging, it was all the color printing of flashcards that took forever. Regardless of the holiday, I always find these types of lesson to be the most challenging because of the culture content. Many of the activities I found online was mostly reading or worksheet-type activities that don't give students a lot of speaking time. I love working with flashcards, and the students like playing card-type games, so I decided to make a Valentine's vocabulary lesson.

In the first part of our lesson, the kids had to write their names down on paper hearts for a chocolate raffle at the end of the class. I told them that there were only two chocolate hearts for each class, so they had to enter a raffle for them, but of course, I got chocolate for all of them. We then moved onto some vocabulary drill with flashcards focusing on Valentine's Day related terms. The Basic and Pre-Intermediate courses learned noun-verb expressions, such as give a box of chocolates, write a Valentine, and get a red roses. The vocabulary for the Intermediate course was idiomatic, such as I'm in love, She's love struck and We're crazy in love. Students then got to practice their new vocabulary in a game of concentration. Rather than having the kids just turn the cards over, they had to say the word for the picture on the card and then a make a sentence for it. If students didn't use the word correctly (even if they had a pair), they had to turn the cards back over. For the Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate courses, we also had a Valentine's Rhyming Game. Students worked in groups and completed a worksheet. They had to read a series of clues and then find a Valentine's Day word that rhymed with the clue. This was quite an effective activity because it helped students with their pronunciation. Cambodian students have a tendency to drop the final consonants on words, so this really helped them to pay more attention to those final consonants.For the last part of class, all the BEA kids got their chocolate and wished my a Happy Valentine's Day! I even got a few hand-made paper roses from some of the students. If any of you are interested, the Valentine's Day Rhyming activity is in an embedded document at the end of today's blog entry.

Student Conferences:
Shally was also very busy today as well with student conferences. He managed to talk with almost half of the students in each of our courses. The purpose of these conferences is to give students their first semester grades, and to give them advice on how to improve their English language skills. This also gives the kids a chance to ask Shally questions about their studies, as well as other issues in their lives. In most cases, Shally is often the only person in their lives that they can confide in about personal issues.

Spring Break 2012:
Tomorrow is the last day of our first semester, so the BEA kids will be on their spring break for three weeks. However, we'll be back to classes on March 12. Although the kids will have break, Shally and I will be busy as usual. We'll be preparing for our CamTESOL presentation on Sunday, February 26 and revising the curriculum for the second semester.

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.

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Review Week / Lesson 1: Valentine's Day

14/2/2011

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Happy Valentine's Day!!!

As in many countries, Valentine's Day is also celebrated among the young. In Siem Reap, you can seen rose sellers along the side of the road for the entire day. Even though we had special Valentine's Day lessons at BEA, there were quite a few students missing from today's classes, which is quite unusual. Perhaps the holiday was the reason.

Anyways, I planed several Valentine's Day activities for the basic and pre-intermediate courses. I was able to get a few good ideas from some EFL websites, but many of the activities often have students working on crossword puzzles or word searches. I've used some of these in the past in my classes in Japan, and students usually end up working quietly. Therefore, I had to make them more interactive among the students and the class as a whole.

At the beginning of each class, I elicited the meaning of Valentine's Day and symbols associated with the holiday. I brought up the word "cupid" and explained how this Roman god of love makes unlikely couples fall in love with his arrows. This was the first time I've ever taught a "holiday" class in a Cambodian classroom. Although we focus most of our curriculum on Cambodian customs and cultures, I still feel a little hesitant at times introducing western holidays, especially if they're religious in nature. Since Valentine's Day is celebrated in Cambodia, I felt it was appropriate to start with this holiday as part of their cultural awareness.

For one activity, students had to work in teams to write down as many words as possible from the expression "Happy Valentine's Day". I was a little surprised because the Basic (A) class found a few words that I didn't have on my own list, one of them being "papaya". Students then worked in groups to complete a word search of words associated with Valentine's Day. Before I teach, I always make sure I'm prepared for vocabulary questions from the students, especially since that they often have an endless list of questions concerning vocabulary. However, I overlooked the term "saint" in the word search. When one student asked me to explain this word to her, I was caught off guard because the explanation would have to involve a historical explanation of the legend of St. Valentine's Day. I bumbled through my explanation using the map in our classroom to point out ancient Rome, and some of the students got the gist of the explanation. For next year's lesson, we'll definitely have to have a short reading activity about the legend of St. Valentine. I had actually wanted to do a lesson on St. Valentine, but was pressed for time last week because we were finishing up our second writing workshop. Regardless, it was another valuable learning experience for me.

By the end of the day, I had received a cornucopia of Valentine's gifts from the students. I got a yellow rose and several keychains, along with sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves, a roasted cob of corn, and a box of oatmeal cookies. However, the best present was the head of cabbage and bunch of red chili peppers. Truly the most imaginative, and thoughtful, gifts I've ever received.

I managed to find a small bottle of coleslaw dressing in the market last night, so now all I have to do is chop up my head of cabbage, and I have coleslaw for my lunch this week.

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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Happy Valentine's Day

Thank you Yusa!

Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Dewar!

Valentine's Day 2012

Review Week / Lesson 1: Valentine's Day

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