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This Week: Teachers across Borders
“Teachers across Borders,” explained Sue, “lifts educational standards in Cambodia, by imparting the latest teaching methods to teachers themselves.” Sue specialises in training Cambodian teachers, in methodology for English Second Language (ESL). Sue herself is a mother, and a physical education teacher who, on travelling to Cambodia saw at first hand the need for improved methods of teaching English language. She thanked RC Balwyn for their financial support for her own period in Cambodia under the banner of TAB.
Cambodia qualifies for UNESCO and other international support for enhanced education, because it endured decades of natural disasters, civil unrest, and genocide under the Khmer Rouge. The Federal Government has endorsed Teachers Across Borders
She and her fellow TAB volunteers, first met in Phnom Penh, where they explored the neighbourhood of Battambang in north west Cambodia. Some 320 local teachers took part in 14 workshops, conducted by 22 Australian and USA Teachers. The workshops can be regarded as intense Teachers Training Projects, opened in a formal Ceremony by a senior Government executive.
While Sue specialises in English Second Language training for teachers, other workshops deal with other specialties such as maths, physics, and geography.
The TAB Workshops start at 7.30am. The Cambodian teachers attending may already have travelled 25km on motor bike on unmade roads to reach the session. And before that, they may have had farming chores to attend to. Said Sue: “My own ESL Workshop had 20 attendees, most of whom were men. Women are relegated to a very second place in the teaching profession in Cambodia”. There would be 3 or 4 Government observers in all her sessions. Remarking on her own instruction priorities, she stressed the need to have a plan for the day, with definite goals.
All workshops conclude with a formal Closing Ceremony conducted under Government auspices.
RCB salutes the work of Sue and her USA and Australian Colleagues in lifting the educational standards in a country such as Cambodia which has suffered so much over many decades.
Owen Tassicker.
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