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Chumkriel Language School - Volunteer

Chumkriel language school is always keen to work with volunteers to give the students access to English speaking foreigners, this helps the children greatly with their pronunciation and listening skills and adds a real excitement to their learning. Volunteers can also get involved in the administration of the school, and its goal of continuous improvement.

Who can volunteer ?

Anyone can volunteer who speaks English, you can help for one hour, one evening, 3 months, up to you. We will help to arrange transport to and from the school (a 10 minute drive from the center of Kampot), this can cost approximately 2 dollars for the round trip by motodup although most of the time we can arrange for you to travel with one of the teachers. There is no charge to help at the school other than your transport and accommodation. We have recently prepared a downloadable Volunteer Guidelines Booklet [PDF document] with further information.

Volunteers are free to sort out there own accommodation and travel in Kampot if they wish. Also 2 organized packages including accommodation, transport and other assistance are provided by the Little garden Bar guesthouse (see http://www.littlegardenbar.com/volunteer.html) for volunteers who wish to help for a longer period.

What will you be helping to achieve ?

If you look at a list of better jobs advertised in Cambodia you will see English language as the main skill requested. Most government jobs require English language, as do many jobs working with NGOs (non government organizations) and charities like the Red Cross. For many university courses English language is required also. Kampot is going through major development in its tourist (and other) industries at present and English will soon be an especially sought after skill in this area.

Cambodia had the majority of its educated people killed during the time of the Khmer Rouge; amazingly some 55% of Cambodians are under 20, so more than most countries it is so true that their future is in their children. With educated youth the country can help to build its way out of poverty, without education it is very hard for people here to know if there country is being run in a fair way or not. Cambodia has a real shortage of trained English teachers. It is a common story here that if a school needs an English teacher they find an existing teacher in the school who can speak a bit of English and tell them ... you are now our English teacher ... no training, no qualification required.

The more dedicated teachers finding themselves in this situation teach themselves over the years how to teach through trial and error, others just keep to "I'll write on the board, you copy". Teacher's salary in state schools is very low and so the incentives aren't very high to put in the mammoth effort to learn how to teach by yourself while having perhaps one or two other jobs also.

What will you be doing if you volunteer?

The classes in the school are run by English speaking Cambodian teachers. The Cambodian teacher runs the class and uses the volunteer as a resource to help with the listening skills and pronunciation skills of the students. No teaching experienced is required. For the more experienced or more adventurous volunteer teacher it is possible to run some classes, with the Cambodian teacher present to assist in translation. We have a standard format for our conversation class for older students, and this is possible for foreigners to run with a Khmer teacher ... a challenging and rewarding experience.