Daily Reflection by Siyu & Jiahuang

Today’s theme is English Fair.

In the morning the 2 construction teams went to visit 2 families. One team revisited the family they helped and interviewed yesterday, while the other team visited a new family. The new family is so poor that they live in a hut-like house which lacks a decent roof. Initially, we thought that it is a toilet. From our conversation with them, we learnt quite a lot of things about them and this part of Cambodia. For example, because it does not rain often here, there is insufficient water to irrigate the crops. Whereas in other areas of Cambodia farmers can grow two crops in one year, they can only grow 1 crop here. This family has an even more difficult time because their rice field is not near either a river or a pond. Sometimes when the harvest is poor, they do not grow enough rice to feed themselves.

The hygiene team continued with the hygiene lessons with the students. They enjoyed the lessons and they tried out new lessons. One point worth noting is that the jigsaw puzzles were really very difficult and even the ‘teachers’ ourselves find it challenging to finish the puzzle. By trying out new lessons, we are able to decide if the planned lessons work or do not work and this allows us to modify our lesson plans for the future.

The English team also tried out new and more interactive teaching methods today. They conducted interesting activities to reinforce students’ understanding. For example, they asked students to answer the question ‘Are you a boy/girl?’ one by one in a very fast way, so that students would really have to react to questions posed instead of giving memorized answers.

The welfare team did a great job today and adhered to the schedule very tightly. In fact, we were ahead of schedule for dinner which was rather rare. They also cooked red bean soup and popcorn and they were really delicious.

Today’s highlight was the English fair. It was very successful – both the students and we had a great fun. Within a period of two hours, it is not very practical to convey a lot of content-based information. Our main aim is to use this fair as a platform to encourage the students to explore English-related topics and develop interest in them. Although at some booths, such as Mix and Match and Wordsearch, the students found the games quite challenging, we modified the games such that students were able to complete the games with the new words that we taught them on the spot. The English fair ended on a high note when we gathered all the students to sing and dance together. We hope that after the fair, the students’ interest can be sustained and they will continue to study English on their own. This is definitely more enduring and meaningful.
Overall, today’s experience was quite fulfilling.

Tomorrow afternoon we will be taking a short break from our current working schedule for R&R at Kampot City. We are all looking forward to this trip.

Written by Jiahuang and Siyu