Category: - Bayon English Academy

Bayon English Academy

Teacher Shally's Writing Workshops

29/5/2014

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.

Writing Workshops 2012

13/2/2012

Hi everyone,

Sorry it’s been such a long time since our last BEA blog posting. I’ve been back in Siem Reap since mid-January, and it’s been non-stop for both Shally and I. The end of the semester is always the hardest mainly because we don’t have enough staff to over part of our workload. What I wouldn’t do to hire a full-time test-marker and a website manager! Anyways, we’ve been making regular updates on our Facebook page, so that’s another way you can keep up with everything that’s been going on at BEA.

Writing Workshops: Teacher & Student Challenges
I wasn’t able to blog daily about the writing classes this year because most of my time was spent revising our workshops from last year, and marking first and final drafts. However, I think we’ll be able to produce our own writing textbook for next year’s writing workshop for the Basic and Pre-Intermediate courses.

Rather than having two writing tasks this year, we decided to have just one, but spent more time on classroom instruction. One of the biggest challenges students had last year, as well as this year, was logically connecting their ideas and details in their paragraphs. Although we spent four lessons on paragraph structure, this still wasn’t enough time for the students to fully understand the structure of writing in English. For next year’s lessons, students definitely need more classroom practice on differentiating between supporting ideas and details, as well as choosing appropriate details for ideas. This was a challenge for students in all of our courses. One of the reasons for this is that most of the students are not taught writing in their own language in public school. Most writing classes end at the end of primary school. As a result, this becomes quite challenging for the kids since they have to use critical thinking skills for the first time, and in a second language!

Regardless, the majority of the students were able to produce a well-written paragraph. Some of their writings will be uploaded to the Journals and Writing Workshops on the website in the next few weeks. I’m also hoping to make the lessons and materials from the Basic and Pre-Intermediate courses available on the site for other Cambodian teachers. The Intermediate lessons won’t be available until next year since they need to be revised and re-tested in the classroom so that all the kinks can be worked out.

Writing Workshops: Teacher Training
During last year’s writing workshops, I taught almost all the classes. However, for this year’s workshops, Shally taught the majority of the lessons. This is part of Shally’s on-going teacher training program as part of his professional development. We have set up a system in which I plan his writing lessons, as well as the lessons in the Intermediate course, and he teaches them using my plans. We have found this to be an effective training technique because these model lessons help him with his own lesson planning. Since writing is the most challenging to teach out of the four skills, this was a challenge for him. Although it was his first time teaching writing, he did an amazing job, especially in his explanations of paragraph structure. One of his strengths is that he’s able to give concise examples to get the point across to the students – all in English. Even the students in our Basic course, who were complete beginners at the start of the school year, were able to follow in English-only instruction. In the end, most of students did indeed use correct paragraph structure and wrote on topic for their tasks.

End of the Semester:
The end of the first semester is coming to an end this week for the BEA kids and staff. We’ll be holding student conferences, as well as having semester wrap-up activities in class. Since lesson planning won’t be as demanding this week, I’ll be able to blog a bit more about what we’re up to before our break.

In the meantime, it’s 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.

School Supplies and Motorbike Rides

24/7/2011

Hi everyone,

The past few days were quite hectic at BEA, especially since we have just one more week before we’re closed for the summer vacation.

School Supplies:
Shally and I spent most of Friday morning at the Preah Vihear Book Center ordering supplies for the new school year, which will start on September 5. We’re offering four courses for the 2011-12 school year, and we’ll have almost 100 students, which means we need more supplies. As usual, BEA students will receive all their school supplies for free. Their orientation package includes one textbook, two notebooks (per semester), a book bag, and a pen case with two blue pens, a red pen, two pencils, a highlighter, a correction pen, a ruler, and a pencil sharpener. If students use up their pens and pencils before the end of the first semester, they are given new ones. We were able to get everything at the Preah Vihear Book Center, except the pen cases, so we had to visit a few other book stores in Siem Reap before we found them. I budgeted $1000 for all the supplies, but surprisingly the grand total was $920. Now, we just have to get the textbooks.

NGO Administration Training Program:
I met Rie for a late lunch on Friday to evaluate her NGO administration training program. She said that it was a very valuable experience, and would highly recommend it to other students interested in NGO work. She also said that she was very surprised at the amount of work and time needed to run a NGO, and was shocked that just Shally and I were able to run an entire school on our own. My next job is to go through her evaluation and training materials, and revise this program so that we can offer it as a permanent training program from February 2012. Although the evaluation was over, Rie’s work for the day was not. We kept her working until the last minute of her stay.

Final Tests and Writing Journals:
BEA students started the second part of their final tests, which consisted of paragraph writing. While the students were writing, Shally finished the speaking evaluations. Shally now has a lot of marking to do within the next few days, and then has to calculate the final grades for the second semester. Also, we collected all the writing journals from students. I’ve started to go through them so that I can come up with topics for research papers before the end of the year. In addition, I’m planning to put some of the students’ comments on the website as “testimonials” to their learning experience at BEA. Overall, I was quite moved at the effect BEA and Shally has had on improvement their English abilities and their lives.

Rie’s Farewell Motobike Ride:
Rie finished up her last day at BEA in the office organizing all the supplies for the 2011-12 school year. We’ll really miss her help, and wish she could’ve stayed longer. I was so impressed with her dedication and hard work, and especially at how quick she was able to finish all her tasks! Thank you so much Rie!

Before Rie left on Saturday, Shally took her on the back of his motorbike through Trapeang Sess Village and the Angkor countryside so that she could see where our students lived and worked. I followed behind on my motorbike, and had a bit of trouble navigating the winding, dirt roads, especially since it had rained the night before, and everything had turned to mud. We headed out into the Angkor countryside along some very narrow paths, and unfortunately I ended up with a flat tire. Shally’s uncle just happened to be in a rice field nearby with his water buffaloes, so he was able to help us get my motorbike back to the main road to get repaired. Fortunately, Rie made it back in time to catch her bus to Phnom Penh. Always drama with Shally and I until the very last minute!

Next Week:
Anyways, we’re back to work tomorrow at BEA and it’ll be another busy week. Shally will be holding student conferences and I’ll be dealing with pre-registration for the new school year.

Back to work even on Sundays…

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.

CamTESOL Preparation

23/2/2011

Hi everyone,

The weather has cooled down a bit today, and there were even morning showers. Such a relief! At the beginning of the week, the temperature reached 99F (37C), which is much hotter than usual for this time of year. Because of the increasing temperatures, we've been seriously considering an air conditioner for our classroom. Once our second semester starts, it'll be even hotter than it is now. I can't imagine what it'll be like in April and May this year, which are the hottest months in Cambodia.

Anyways, BEA is closed for the next three weeks so that Shally and I have time to prepare for the second semester. This week has been quite busy because we've been finishing our presentations for the CamTESOL conference This is a conference for English language teachers and researchers, which is held annually in Phnom Penh. Both Shally and I will be presenting at the conference this year.

Shally will be talking about our speaking program and how we've localized the program to reflect the needs of Cambodian learners. I'll be discussing our writing program and how to develop lesson plans with limited resources. Our purpose is to share our experiences in the Cambodian classroom with other teachers and to provide them with ready-to-use materials for their own classes.

Both Shally and I have almost finished our powerpoint slide presentations, and now we're working on our handouts (e.g. sample lesson plans and materials). All of these materials and our slide presentations will be uploaded to our website under the "Research and Resources" section before the conference. This is part of our "teacher empowerment" goal: to provide Cambodian teachers with training and materials for their own professional development. If you're interested in what type of lessons and materials we use at BEA, please check our the professional development section.

Onwards to CamTESOL,
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.

Writing Workshop Lesson 2-5

11/2/2011

Hi everyone,

I'm somewhat relieved that today is the last day of our two week writing program. The teaching, of course, was an incredible learning experience. I now know the names of all our students, which makes it much easier to put a face to a name when I have skype meetings with Shally once I'm back in Japan. In addition, I have a much better direction in revising our school's curriculum for next year, as well as tweeking the one for the second semester, which will start mid-March.

The most frustrating part of this program was that there were absolutely no materials whatsoever available here in Siem Reap nor in all the other resource books I brought from Japan. Although I've been teaching academic writing at the university level in Japan for many years now, I've never had to completely design an entire program from scratch. Usually, I am able to pull different ideas from a number of sources to plan a lesson. What I had to do for this program was to use a writing concept, such as brainstorming, and then design all the materials around that concept so that it would be appropriate for a Cambodian classroom. I'm hoping to organize all these materials into a workbook for our program next year. In addition, I'll also make it available through our website with step-by-step lesson plans for Cambodian teachers. I can truly understand their frustrations when they have to teach writing in public school. How do they do it?

Anyways, we had our editing classes for all our courses today for our second writing task. The basic courses had to write about their partner while the pre-intermediate course had to write a cover letter a CV. Once again, most students in the basic courses did not have any trouble with grammar correction. They were able to identify simple grammar errors in their partner's draft. Most of the errors they identified had to do with spelling, capital letters, punctuation, dropping the 3rd person "s", the past tense and plural forms. One student was even able to identify missing subjects in her parnter's draft. Students still had trouble with identifying irrelevant sentences in their partner's draft. This is not surprising since they are still at the basic level, and this type of "critical thinking" activity is usually a challenge for basic level students. In next year's program, I will definitely have to have an entire lesson on identifying coherent and incoherent paragraphs.

While I was editing their drafts the night before, I came across some interesting sentence structure forms, which I would like to further investigate. These are two sentences that caught my eye:

(1) "When he studies already, he cames back home."
(2) After he finished dinner already.

These sentences were from two different students, and what surprises me is the use of "already". It is usually used with the present perfect (e.g. I've already studied), so I'm interested in where this error comes from. As I said, it's something I'll have to look into later on.

In the pre-intermediate course, most students have shown a lot of progress in giving feedback to their partner's on their drafts. Similar to the basic students, they were able to give corrections on errors, such as tense, spelling and punctuation. However, they could identify the incorrect use of word forms and prepositions, as well as point out missing words. Some students were even able to show their partner where they needed to add extra details to support their ideas.

During the editing lessons, Shally was helping me with individual feedback. I noticed in the pre-intermediate class that students didn't seem to favor me over Shally when it came to giving feedback.

For homework, all classes had to review their partner's comments on their drafts, as well as my comments, and write their final draft for Monday's class.

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.

Writing Workshop Lesson 2-4

10/2/2011

Hi everyone,

Today's classes were quite busy for Shally. After observing our practice editing lessons in last week's class, it was his turn to run these types of lessons on his own. Eventually, he'll have to teach the writing program on his own.

In our practice editing class last week, we had a sentence auction. Students had to categorize sentences into correct and incorrect sentences. They then had to correct the sentences with errors. We then had a sentence auction in which students had to compete against other groups to "purchase" correct sentences with "BEA dollars". I've noticed that students have been able to identify errors in isolated sentences. However, they've had difficulty finding errors, especially structural errors, when these sentences are in a paragraph.

For this week's practice editing class, I decided to tweek the activity. Rather than identifying errors in isolated sentences, students had to find both grammatical and structural errors in a paragraph. Students then played the same sentence auction game, but they were "purchasing" sentences within a paragraph this time.

For today's lessons, I wasn't in the classroom with Shally. When Shally and I are in the classroom together, I often find that students will turn to me for grammar explanations rather than asking Shally, especially in the pre-intermediate class. Since the last part of today's lesson is going through the answers by analyzing each of the errors, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to have Shally show off his own grammar knowledge and to show the students that they can turn to both of us for grammar explanations.

Prior to the lessons, Shally and I did have a mini-training session dealing with some of the more difficult points of the pre-intermediate lessons, such as the use of acronyms (=a word formed from the first letters of the words that make up the name of something) in formal writing style.

From Shally's observations, the lessons seems to go off without a hitch. He observed that students in all the classes were able to identify the errors in the model paragraphs (for the Basic courses) and in the model cover letter (for the pre-intermediate course). Hopefully, this a positive sign that students are starting to internalize the writing process. We'll see in tomorrow's editing class.

I was a little surprised at how Shally altered the administration of the auction game. Usually, the groups have "money" and they use this to pay the auctioneer (the teacher) for the sentences. However, he decided it was easier to manage the game by keeping track of the money for each team by writing the amounts on the whiteboard. In one way, this does make this game easier to manage, but at the same time, it makes it more teacher-centered.

While Shally was teaching, I was able to finish marking all the final drafts from our first writing workshop. However, at the end of class, the students handed in their first drafts for the second writing workshop, so it was back to checking in the evening.

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.

Writing Workshop Lesson 2-2

9/2/2011

Hi everyone,

Our lessons just flew by yesterday! In the Basic A course, especially, I was busier than usual. A group of students missed Monday's brainstorming session, so I basically have to teach two lessons at the same time. Now I know how public school teachers feel in Canada with split grades!

In our Basic courses, we completed a cluster diagram (=a type of graphic organizer used to organize ideas). Students had to use the information they collected about their partners in their interviews and organize their information into supporting ideas and supporting details. The students basically ran this activity themselves with very little support from me. They were extremely interactive with their partners when it came to adding additional information for each of their supporting ideas.

We then moved on to a review of paragraph structure. I elicited the different parts and their functions, and most of the students were able to recall the information from last week's lessons. I've noticed in my own teaching practices that I make much more use of "elicitation techniques" in Cambodia than I do in Japan because the students seem to love volunteering in class. It's not just one student volunteering, but several at the same time. It often seems like they compete with each other to answers. I absolutely love this type of atmosphere.

Students then got a model paragraph, which was used to reinforce paragraph structure. As usual, we had a vocabulary check after the reading activity. I've been getting better at predicting problem vocabulary areas, and am more prepared for vocabulary explanations in our lessons. However, I've noticed that we definitely need to include more on word forms in our speaking and listening program. For example, in yesterday's class, many students asked for the meaning of "helpful" as in "My teacher is helpful." When I elicited the verb form "help" as in "My teacher helps me", student knew the verb form, but were not aware of the adjective form. This has not been an isolated incident, but such questions come up in almost every lesson. This is especially useful to help me revise next year's curriculum.

In the Pre-intermediate course, we focused on the structure of cover letters. In the first part of our lesson, students had to read a model cover letter. As in the basic classes, students had difficulty in identifying different words forms. For example, they were aware of the verb form of "prepare", but not the noun form "preparation". I was also asked the meaning of "thorough" and was caught off guard. However, I think the students got the general meaning of the word with my spur of the moment explanation.

Student were then given a kinesthetic activity (=a learning activity where students use physical activity). Each group had to arrange cards with the different parts of a cover letter into a coherent structure. They then had to use these cards to identify the different parts on their model cover letter. Afterwards, we had some time to go through some of the expressions used for writing cover letters, but we'll spend today's class on those expressions.

For homework, all classes had to complete their outlines.

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.

Writing Workshop Lesson 2-3

9/2/2011

Hi everyone,

We continued with our second writing task in yesterday's classes. In the Basic (A) class, I used a kinesthetic activity to teach conjunctions (e.g but, and, so). Students were given 15 cards and arrange them into sentences with the correct conjunction. They had no trouble using the word "but" to connect sentences, but they did have a little difficulty with "so". In the feedback session after the activity, Shally gave an explanation of the use of "so" in Khmer, but the students will definitely need more activities with conjunctions in the future.

One noticeable observation is that Cambodian students do quite well at identifying grammar elements in isolated sentences, such as in the card game. However, when students have to identify sentences in a paragraph or make their own sentences, it is still quite a challenge for them. Perhaps in next year's workshop, I will have students identify these elements in a paragraph first and then in individual sentences.

In the Basic (B) course, we didn't have time for the conjunctions card game. Shally and I spent most of the lesson checking outlines. Compared to the first class, this class has had much more trouble with paragraph coherence. While I checked the outlines, the main problem was that students didn't connect some of their supporting sentences to the controlling idea in their topic sentences. Hopefully, the individual feedback with each student will help them with their first drafts. I felt a bit disappointed after this lesson because I thought the students would be able to write their topic sentences this time with less instruction from me. However, this was a mistake on my part, but a very good learning experience. In future workshops, we will definitely have to spend much more time on the parts of a paragraph and more practice activities before they start their own paragraphs. Rather than spending one week on a writing task, I will probably spend two weeks on one writing task. Both Shally and the students have told me this approach to writing is very new to them, and that they are not taught how to write in English in public school.

In the Pre-intermediate course, our lesson focused on formal expressions for writing a cover letter. In order to learn these expressions, we completed a running dictation activity. Students had a lot of fun with this activity, and I'm amazed at the energy they had for a "grammar" activity. During the feedback session, the students, as usual, had an endless list of questions for me. I always feel challenged in the Cambodian classroom because I can never predict what type of questions I will be asked. I definitely spend more time preparing grammar explanations in Cambodia. Regardless, we focused mostly on the differences between formal and informal expressions for writing, such as the differences between "I look forward to ..." and "I'm looking forward to ..."

On a lighter note, the other day Shally told me that the Pre-intermediate class had made up a list of eight rules for their classroom at the beginning of the semester. He told me that I had to ask the students if I wanted to find out. Well, I asked them yesterday, and they proudly revealed their class list of rules. Here they are in random order...

1. No eating.
2. No picking your nose.
3. No chewing on your pens.
4. Turn off your cell phones.
5. Don't be quiet.
6. Arrive on time.
7. No goofing around.
8. No farting.

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.

Writing Workshop Lesson 2-1

8/2/2011

Hi everyone,

Well, we're into the second week of our writing program, which means we've started a new task for both the Basic (A), Basic (B) and Pre‐intermediate courses.

Last week was an incredibly learning experience, and I have a really good sense of direction on how to develop future writing programs at the school, and in the future, our own textbook.

For the two Basic courses, I decided to make the writing task a little easier this week. Last week's task was a bit too challenging because I decided to introduce the use of the simple past so that the students could write about an important event in their lives. Regardless, most of the students were able to complete the task well beyond my expectations.

For this week's task, students are going to write a "descriptive paragraph" about their partner's life. In our lesson yesterday, we completed a brainstorming activity. Students had to work together and make a list of interview questions, and then they had to interview their partner and note down the information. A few pairs came up with some interesting questions, such as "Who do you like best in your family?" and "Why do you like Cambodia?" Almost all of the student had no problem with making questions forms in the simple present tense. In yesterday's class, there were two noticeable observations. First, stronger students seem to automatically help those who are much weaker. They are very generous with their help. We have a few students with very little knowledge of their own native language (Khmer) and no previous English language experience. The stronger students will often play the role of "note‐taker" for them because their ability to write Roman letters is still very weak. Second, I have yet to tell the class to "stop speaking Khmer". I am somewhat shocked that for a Basic level course, I never hear the students use their native language.

For the Pre‐intermediate course, we're learning how to write a cover letter for a CV. I'm actually basing my upcoming conference presentation (CamTESOL) in Phnom Penh at the end of February on this workshop. I'm hoping that the lesson plans and materials I develop this week will help Cambodian teachers in their classrooms.

Similar to the Basic course, we spent the lesson brainstorming ideas, but there was a much greater focus on vocabulary acquisition. Although many of the students have quite a fluent level of speaking, I often forget that Cambodian classes need to have a larger vocabulary component than in my Japanese classes. This is mainly because almost all students do not have access to dictionaries, so it is not possible to give them "vocabulary homework" to prepare for the next day.

Similar to last week's brainstorming session, we used a "cluster" diagram. Students had to choose a job they would like to have in the future, and note down the different types of qualifications necessary for that job. Before the activity, we went through the vocabulary needed to write about qualifications. There was a bit of confusion about the differences between diploma, degree, certificate and license, so I'll have to make sure to review these terms again in today's lesson. Once again, I was very impressed by the high hopes the students have for their lives. Most of the students are between the ages of fifteen and twenty, and they aspire to be managers, doctors, journalists, teachers, and lawyers.

The students in all the classes were quite relieved when I didn't assign homework for last night. However, they'll be plenty of homework tonight. I also have quite a bit of homework myself, especially after collecting the final drafts for the students' first writing task.

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.

Writing Workshop Lesson 1-5

4/2/2011

Hi everyone,

In today's lessons, students completed editing and revising activities. In this activity, they received a copy of their partner's writing, and had to correct grammar mistakes on their partners' drafts. In addition, they also received a checklist where they had to note down if their partners had included all the structural components of a paragraph. Finally, they had to give their partners advice on how to improve their writing.

In the basic courses, students did really well at identifying and correcting simple past tense mistakes. However, their greatest difficulty was trying to tell the difference between supporting ideas and supporting details. We had to spend some time in class on "logical connection" of ideas. In our next writing task, I will definitely have to spend more time on the development of supporting sentences in our lessons. While students were working with their partners, I was quite impressed to see that they would often ask their partners for clarification about their writing rather than me. Shally has done a great job at getting students used to the practice of pair and group work.

On a lighter note, there was a student in the Basic(A) course who insisted that his sentence "I ate foot" was correct. I had to gesture his sentence, and he then realized he made a spelling mistake "food". Through these writing lessons, I've noticed that some Cambodian students have difficulty in telling the difference between the sounds d / t, v / w, as well as p / b.

For the pre‐intermediate course, the students basically ran the lesson themselves. They could identify the grammar mistakes in their partners' drafts, and wrote well‐developed advice for their partners. One student advised her partner to " write more supporting details for each characteristic" and another wrote "your points are not full because you didn't write enough". This shows me that they are aware of how to develop a paragraph. However, the major issue with this class, as with the basic course, was logical connection between sentences. I often noticed while I was checking their first drafts that some students did a good job at supporting their characteristic with details, but then they would introduce other ideas not related to the characteristic. This is something we'll have to review in the next writing task.

At the end of class, I returned their checked drafts. For homework, students have to edit, revise and rewrite their drafts.

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.