Name: Sarah Bennet
Location: Cambodia
Report Title: Summing Up Report
Report Date: 28/02/2010
Cambodian Children’s Fund Concluding Report Overview The education provision at CCF is one of the best in Cambodia. The organisation is excellent, the teachers are highly dedicated and motivated and the students have an incredible will to learn and improve. The timetable is structured, detailed and varied; enabling students to get a rounded education and includes many extracurricular activities held at lunch time and in the evenings. Students study for half a day at public school and then half a day at CCF. There are also additional evening English classes for students who are on apprenticeships or work placements during the day. Over the past 6 months I have been working predominantly at CCF1, 2, 4, and 6 focussing specifically on the English curriculum and pedagogy of the teachers. I have had monthly meetings with the Facility Managers and weekly meetings with the Head of Education. For the past 6 weeks Channin Sok, the Head of Education has been shadowing me at the various centres to support what I am doing and to improve her understanding of the various schemes that have been implemented. Emma Murphy has also been trained to do lesson observations and spot checks on the Phonics program as part of her facility outreach role.
Phonics Over the past 6 months a Phonics scheme has been devised and put in place at all the CCF facilities. This scheme is designed to enable students to learn to recognise the sounds of English letters (phonemes) then learn to blend the individual sounds together in order to be able to read English. The scheme we have used is the UK based scheme called ‘Jolly Phonics’. The first stage of the programme was to teach the teachers the sounds and to have one to one sessions on phonemic awareness and pronunciation. Following this I team-taught with the teachers in their classes to demonstrate how to teach Phonics and to give advice and guidance on best practice. The next stage was to introduce the resources that we acquired from the UK and to show the teachers how to use the resources within the classes. Resources have been written to assist the implementation of Phonics, such as a detailed lesson plan, phonemic awareness activities and blending activities. A Phonics Assessment was also introduced at this stage, to encourage the teachers to see the progress that is being made. Sessions were held on how to complete the assessment and how to implement it in a classroom situation. One to one help was given to teachers when carrying out the assessment. The final stage was to carry out formal lesson observations on the teaching staff, giving them written and verbal feedback and constructive points for improvement. A follow up lesson observation took place in my final two weeks to ensure progress was being made
Timetable My weekly timetable was based initially around spending one day a week in each centre, with one office day per week to work on the curriculum and assessment monitoring. A bi-monthly Saturday morning group training session was set up to get all the teachers together enabling them to support each other and give me the opportunity to deliver group instruction to all the teachers. As the teachers grew more confident with Phonics more of my time was spent writing the Speaking and Listening Curriculum and developing the resources for Phonics. For the final two months of my placement I have spent time in each centre each week, however, have tended to do spot checks and one off lesson observations to encourage consistency in the teaching and pedagogy taking place and to avoid reliance on my interventions and assistance. Resources In addition to the implementation of the Jolly Phonics program extensive resources have been acquired by CCF to aid the teaching of the Jolly Phonics scheme. We received a 50% discount on all the resources purchased from Jolly Learning to get the program up and running. Training has been given to both teachers and facility managers on how to use the resources and it is essential that these resources are easily accessible to the teachers on a day to day basis for their classes. Phonics Success? I believe that the Phonics Scheme has been a real success so far with many of the older students now being able to read a high percentage of English words. Nine CCF teachers, plus the Head of Education and her assistant have completed a 6 month training program in how to teach Phonics and are skilled practitioners of the Phonics lesson plan. Those teachers are able to train other teachers in how to teach a Phonics lesson, therefore enabling sustainability of the program. I have also trained Emma in how to complete a Phonics lesson observation and as part of her outreach role she will be continuing to perform lesson observations and spot checks on the teachers. The success of Phonics depends on the teachers sticking to the lesson plan provided, yet being able to vary the activities within the lessons to keep the interest levels of the students high. Blending and reading practice is also a massive area that needs pushing for Phonics to be a real success here. Speaking and Listening
A Speaking and Listening Curriculum has also been put into place for all CCF students to be taught for one lesson a week in conjunction with their traditional English course ‘English in Mind’ or ‘Headway’. The S&L curriculum is designed to encourage students to verbalise English and the sessions are centred on competitions, games and fun activities to establish a relaxed and fun atmosphere, therefore promoting more English being spoken. Most of the activities should be completed with students sitting in a circle on the floor, or working in teams and groups, individual desks should be discouraged, as this puts a physical barrier between students and therefore inhibits verbal communication. I have written three modules for S&L, working through ‘Myself, My school, My Family’ with each module having 5 sessions and an assessment. For further development the module topic can simply be changed, and the games and activities can remain largely the same. This will therefore make the program highly sustainable. An assessment for the S&L curriculum has also been written, which specifically assesses the students’ abilities in verbal English.
CCF5 and Satellite School
Training has been given to the teachers at CCF5 and the Satellite school in Phonics and basic education processes for younger children. All the Phonics resources have been given to both facilitates and a demonstration lesson has taken place at both locations to assist Phonics teaching there. More sustained help and assistance needs to be given to both places in order to help improve their teaching practices and pedagogy. Setarah will be working at CCF5 developing the curriculum there and I have recommended that Nin and Ousa continue to monitor the teachers at the Satellite school and their Phonics teaching. Pronunciation Training
A 2 hour workshop was attended by 20 CCF teachers to focus on pronunciation, with practical advice and guidance given on specific phonemes and digraphs. Worksheets and equipment to aide pronunciation was given to the teachers to assist them. Horse Riding at CCC
Links have been formed with the Cambodian Country Club through a volunteer associate of mine. 60 students have been given the opportunity to have a horse riding lesson at the Cambodian Equestrian Centre with the possibility of a more sustained program being established between CCF and CCC. 
The other side of Cambodian life.
