teachers across borders
Teachers Across Borders Australia Incorporatedis a non government not for profit organisation that conducts short term workshops for teachers in developing countries. It is not affiliated with any other organisation.
Currently volunteer teachers from TAB Australia run professional development workshops in three provinces in Cambodia in the semester breaks in January, July and August.
Workshops are offered to teachers from all three educational sectors from kindergarten to senior secondary school as well as for principals and administrators. Teaching and learning across a broad range of areas are covered as well as workshops that are not subject based.
Steve Kolber
Teacher
During the mid-year holiday break, my wife (Jemina Kolber, an English/Media Teacher at Buckley Park College) and I will be returning to Cambodia with the Teachers Across Borders program. This will be our third volunteer placement with the program. BSC teacher, Oki Gardner, will be joining us for the program on her second placement with T.A.B.
Together, we will run a 5-day workshop addressing Middle Years Literacy in Kampong Thom, which is an area best known to tourists as a bus stop between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. To facilitate our work, we will have to communicate with the teachers via a translator recruited from the most able English speakers within the group.
Teaching in Cambodia
Cambodia is a place in great need of support and improvement - especially in the area of education. Most of the current secondary school teachers have not themselves even completed the levels of schooling that they teach - a direct result of the Khmer Rouge and the depletion of the education workforce during their brutal reign.
Due to this lack of funding, training and development, teaching in Cambodia has many challenges.
- teaching is commonly based on the wat model (recitation and call-and-response) - an approach historically drawn from temple instruction
- a typical class is made up of 50 to 60 students
- classrooms are unpowered
- teaching resources are very limited and
- students often lack the necessary books and tools
To support these teachers in their quest to improve their teaching environments, our workshop will be focus on introducing literacy strategies that will challenge and change their teaching practice. Teachers will be given the knowledge and skills to encourage their students to be more creative in their writing tasks, and most importantly to allow their students to interact with their native language (Khmer) to a higher degree. This is a practical - rather than textbook based - approach to language. Teaching this way will allow their students to be empowered to participate more actively in their classes and to focus on pair- and group-work which is not a very commonly used strategy in Cambodia.
We love visiting Cambodia and working with TBA. It is a chance to develop our own teaching practice as well as to communicate new ideas to the teachers there. Being involved in a program like this is also a great way to get to know the country and allows for some great cultural exchange. Jemima, Oki and myself pay for all of our own travel and accommodation costs when participating in the project, however those that we teach are less fortunate and can struggle to sacrifice their wage in order to spend time upgrading their skills. The majority of the current teachers juggle two or even three additional jobs - typically agricultural labour jobs - as their teaching salary is not sufficient to live on.
To assist with this, we are currently raising funds to allow the Cambodian teachers to attend the workshop and to pay for the materials that they need in order to make the most of the opportunity.
Anyone interested in finding out more about our program or in making a donation to support this work can find out more at our YouCaring Crowdfunding webpage: www.youcaring.com/tab17kt.