Another good thing about PHAW was that i had my days planned for me, I spent the whole in the class room basically, then did homework at night. Now back to my normal life I need to keep track of lots of bits and pieces. I end up writing lots of lists, and keeping a time sheet of the day, and a week plan. Today I spent a lot of time doing "home side" stuff and related to PNB. I also did a bit of language study. I planned to do some English Fellowship planning, but didn't quite make it. I went to the market to get some veggies. Yesterday a lot of the same stuff plus going to the primary school. Hadn't seen the teachers for ages so was nice to see them again.

Correcting

Last week the school I help out had a one week break. Most schools here have a long summer break between academic years (aka Christmas holidays)but this school just started term 3 this week.
They asked me to start doing some activities with the stories. As well as reading the story and getting the kids to read the story, we are starting to use them as role plays too.
Also today the teachers took turns to read me a story so I could correct their English.

Saturday lunch

On Saturday we had some people over for lunch. We often have students come to our house for meals, but its not often we invite others, everyone else lives so far away! I invited the three girls (and families) I work with at the bilingual school. Two of them knew where the Bible school is so they came on their own moto. The other girl is a bike rider and didn't know, so we went to pick her up in the car. Much easier than trying to explain where we live, and easier for her not to have to spend an hour each way in the hot sun!

Kimsoeun and I both really enjoyed the day. Mostly our social life is with the students at Bible school and youth at church. They are younger than us, and Soeun is their teacher. It was fun to hang out with people closer to our age who don't call us Teacher.

At school we have to speak English, so I had never heard these three teachers speak Khmer before. I know that they are Khmer and so its their native language, but I still found myself surprised when they began chatting away- and so fast!

Wet and Vet

The other day at school the teacher got me to help teach the pronunciation of wet and vet. The 'w' and 'v' sound are really hard to say for Khmer people. In Khmer there is one sound that is similar to both, so its hard for them to distinguish between the two. And when I'm speaking Khmer I have the same trouble with some sounds. In English we have a "d" sound and a 't' sound, but in Khmer there are four different sounds. I've been told I often say "tight"when I mean to say "know".

Don't speak Khmer!

I've recently discovered I think I think in Khmer more than I thought. Let me explain. At the school I help at I have to speak English. I'm there to help the Khmer teachers with their English and teaching. They teach in English and everything in the classroom in the morning is totally in English. I'm finding I have to stop myself from speaking Khmer. When I go to say something I need to search in my head for the English! Once I said something in Khmer and the kids laughed and ran to tell some other kids that the teacher spoke Khmer.

UPDATE: I wrote that last week. Today I couldn't do much to help at school as I've lost my voice. Well, I can talk a bit but it sounds so funny the kids didn't understand, and adults (esp Soeun) seem to find it funny. It does sound pretty funny. I learnt how to say "I lost my voice", lit: speaking can't come out.

Cross cultural toilet talk part 1 "Sssshhh"

Today I watched a Khmer teacher teaching English to her 4-5 year olds. She was teaching them the English sound "sh". As this sound doesn't occur in the Khmer language it is a hard new sound for learners. To help them, she said- "Sssshhhhh, like when you go to the toilet."

It sounded funny to me, but seemed normal to them. I don't think I would have got what she meant if I hadn't come across this before. A few years ago I was teaching some adults English. When I wanted them to be quiet and listen to me I said "SSSHHHHH!".

This sent them into fits of giggles, I had no idea why. I told my then-boyfriend about it and he explained that sshhhhh is the sound that mothers use when they ask their kids if they need to use the bathroom!

"Ssshhhh?"

New job

Well the cold weather left us around Monday but we still have colds! I keep thinking we are almost better then find that's not true.

I recently started helping at a bilingual school, if I wasn't sick this would have been my second week. My role is to help the teachers with their English and give them ideas for class activities. This is the first time I have done ELT stuff with kids, so its all new.