Day14 : My Last Entry in this Blog

When to the National Museum with Sharon. The musium is amazing with artefacts from 7th century and back. Spent the whole morning at the National Museum. Walked there. Was trailed by a boy and his sister who're begging for some money. It's a hard situation to handle. If you give him and the sister money, then you open the floodgate to all the other beggars to head your way. If you don't, you feel guilty. Either way, you feel bad.

Back to the National Museum. The artefacts are amazing. Each statue is carved from blocks of stone a few tonnes in weight. Gives a preview to the amazing sights that we will be witnessing in Angkor. Just blows the mind away.

After the National Museum, we went to the Phsar (pronounced Pasar!) Tol Tom Poung. Phsar if you haven't guessed also mean market. Tol Tom Poung is also known as the Russian Market. It has a bezillion things. Sha and I had so much fun shopping there.

Went to the Pochengtong airport to pick up Eve. Her flight arrived ahead of schedule at 505pm. She is here safely so no worries! She'd checked into her room. Tomorrow she starts work and it's her show from now on. I'm sure that she will be an excellent teacher!

Anyways, that's all for now. My last entry. It's been fun!

cl (05/02/2006)

Day 13: Eve's Drivers

Hi Eve,

Here are the pictures of your drivers for the next two weeks:

This is one of the cars that will be picking you up and dropping you off at the Imperial Gardens:

The other car is also a Toyota Camry but I don't know the license plate and I didn't take a picture of it.

The driver will pick you up at 0815hrs and drop you off at the front of the Hong Kong Centre. Remember it is left-hand drive so get in on the right side (the side next to the road) so that it is easier to get off. The lunch break is usually from 1130 to 1400 hrs. The driver will pick you up from the Hong Kong Centre at 1145 to send you back to the hotel.

For the afternoon session, the driver will pick you from the hotel at 1345hrs. He will tehn return again to pick you up around 1715hrs after you are done with class.

You can always change the time with the driver according to your needs. Remember the drivers will alternate their duties so don't get stress if you see it's a different one from before.

Day12 : The Lesson (My Last)

Last and final day. My wife, Sharon joined me in class. Tried something new today. Well, actually I improved on the Q&A session that I used yesterday. The new game was called The Hot Seat. Sharon was the in the hot seat. The students have to ask a question in Khmer but before they ask the question, they have to select one of their classmates as the translator. So the question is asked in Khmer and then the translator has to translate the question into English for Sharon to answer. The question can be on any topics be it about our married life, Singaporean society, politics etc. After the translated question is asked, I will then analyse the question and figure out if there are different ways of asking the question in English. Grammatical problems are also dealt with and explained to the class. After that is cleared, Sha would then give her reply. This provided a reward to the class because if they want to find out more, they have to ask more question.

As this was my last day teaching them, one of the students, Phanly invited me and Sharon out for lunch. We were taken to lunch on the otherside of the Tonle Sap/Mekong. Tonle = River. The restaurant is this interesting place that stood out over some marshland. The entire restaurant is built on stilts. Below the restaurant is this marshland with amazing pods of lotus plants and water lilies. The flowers of these plants are huge!

Fridays are traditionally the movie days so we watched Forever Fever to acquaint the students to the Singaporean accent. The class then asked a couple more questions on Singapore and then the class ended.

Felt free and sad at the same time. Cliche though this may be, it's like Shakespeare oft repeated oxymoron: parting is such sweet sorrow.

Well, my term has ended and Eve's wonderful one is about to begin. I am sure with her stronger grasp of grammar, Eve will be a much better teacher and continue to build on the good will that has already been generated.

We'll see but this may be my last entry. If this is the last, good bye for now.

Day11 - The Lesson

Had an interesting session this morning because I tried a different approach to getting the students to speak. I invited them to interogate me on any issues concerning me and Singapore. This is similar to what I did on the first day. Today it worked much more beautifully because the students are much more comfortable with me now so a number of them started ask really good questions ranging from Singapore's favourite foods dishes, to my family, to the socio-economic fabric of Singapore. The bottom line is this. The students are trying their best in constructing sentences in English and speaking up. It is nice. After the break we finished In Company Chapter 8 which has a sub-section on Starbucks. That was nice because we then followed up listening to Rob and Bob podcast which has an episode on Starbucks. Nice alignment.

During the break time I helped Evelyn arrange for her chauffer service for her stay here. The driver will pick her up to and fro the hotel and the training centre every day. Eve, your vehicle number is a maroon Camry license plate 0160. Sometimes it will be a white camry (I am not sure of the license plate) .

In the afternoon, we listened to more Rob and Bob ESl podcast. This time they are talking about festivals and festivities. We also listened to a Voice of America Special English Broadcast on Women's Rights. That was kind of fun.

I went to the airport to pick up Sharon, my wife after class. Yay! She's finally here! Chivy and Mariny drove me to the airport. Sha arrived early. Yippee!!!! Sha, Mariny and Chivy hit it off right away. Chivy gave Sha a whirlwind tour of Phnom Penh and showed us her house acrossed from the Tonle Sap. We went for dinner together and Phany joined us later. Had rip-roaring night.

Tomorrow's the last day. It's kind of sad but it's time for Eve to enjoy the warm friendship and hospitality of the Cambodians!

Day10 : The Lesson

Today's lesson was conducted based on a special request from Phy Sokun. Sokun asked me yesterday just after the morning break if I could conduct a short lesson on writing e-mails. So I did some research on the internet last night on the topic of e-mails for this morning's class. Found a useful powerpoint on the topic of "netiquette" and so I incorporated this for use for this morning's lesson. I was a bit worried about this powerpoint because it was prepared for native speakers but it seems that the class found it useful and informative. That's a relief!

The second half of the morning was fun! As part of the handover process to Evelyn, I made full use of the conveniences of Skype. I skyped Eve and got the students to talk to her. The objective was twofold:

1. To get them to hear Eve's voice so that they won't feel strange meeting her for the first time on Monday and vice versa.
2. To get them to practice having an English conversation on the telephone. This is a good practical lesson from yesterday's lesson on Telephone English.

Afternoon session started with getting the students to practice writing. They each have to write a short email to Eve on what are their expectations of her in terms of lessons. The writing isn't great but I am compiling it for Eve verbatim so she will know their standard. This is also part of the handing over process to her. Emailed her the file just now. In the second half of the afternoon, we continued with the In Company book.


Another Cultural Moment:

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono came round again today to visit the Cambodian King. The motorcade carrying President Susilo was greeted by hundreds of Cambodian primary and secondary school students. They were brought there early in the morning to wait for the Indonesian president. All of them were carrying little Cambodian and Indonesian flags. A number of them were also given A4 size portraits of King Sihamoni and President Susilo.

I guess this is probably not too unusual, what's unusual for me as a Singaporean was, the children were asked to wait by the road side until President Susilo had finished his visit with the King! The students from many schools were standing by the road side for nearly two hours! That way when he return the same way, the VIP can see the students waving their flags and pictures again.

Their role over and done with, all hell breaks loose! :c)

Work Done:
Purdue University's Powerpoint on Netiquette

In Company, Chapter 8