Living and Laughing in the ‘Bodia!

This past February, Dr. Laurette Poulos Simmons volunteered to lead a week long ESL Workshop for the Journeys Within Our Community Language School Teachers.  All 12 language school teachers attended, learning how to create dynamic powerpoint presentations and engage their students in many activities.  “I was so interested in her teaching technique and how she explained the lessons to us.  All the lessons were simple and easy to understand for the second language learners”, said Chorm Ley, one of Wat Thmei’s English teachers. 

One of JWOC’s newest language school teachers, Sann Tola also said, “She had given us the experience that is very important for our job as English Teachers and that also we had lacked before.  I am most interested in her methods of how to get the students’ attention in the lesson.” 

With the generous sponsorship from Laurette, Chamm Sela, a teacher at Wat Chork, will be attending the annual Cambodia TESOL Conference in Phnom Penh in 2009.  Laurette is excited for Sela to attend. 

posted by Melissa 4/21/2008

To get a more intimate glimpse into the lives of each of my students, I gave them a self portrait assignment.  For each photo, I asked them to explain why they took it to the class the following week.  Most interesting is the wide variety of photographs I have received thus far:

Biv Brom:  One of the monks that live at Wat Chork reveals his comic side by taking photographs of what he sees is humorous.

Sreilin tells us about the beautiful sunrise she wakes up to:  “I get up early every morning.  I took this picture because I love all the colors when the sun rises:  Red, Pink, Yellow, Orange and Blue.” 

Sara chose to photograph her family, focusing on her siblings in particular.  Her little brother stands next to the many water buffalo of Cambodia. 

Lai Rathmana, another monk that lives at Wat Chork, was the only student to take a series of photographs at night, having fun with the vibrant lights of carnival rides. 

posted by Melissa 4/21/2008