I'm in the Army Now . . .

  . . . or so to speak. I have been working with Lao army English teachers for the last month teaching a special short course. The group of 15 is composed of teachers from the Southern Province of Champasak, the Northern Provinces of Luang Prabang and Xianghoang, and Vientiane Province. They are a wonderful group that we (4 other teachers and I) are teaching intensively in order to help them improve their English and at the same time teach them something about English language methodology. It is a challenge, but a welcome one as I love working with international teachers :)

Although they are at different levels of English language proficiency, one in particular is quite low, they have all improved. I showed them how to use verb "flashcards" and a present tense "boardgame" last week, most of them never having played a board game before. They were thrilled and eager to know where I bought the ABC, 123, and phonetic sound flashcards I also showed them. I had actually picked them up at Target for 99 cents per pack. Unfortunately, items like that are very hard to find here - Vietnam and Thailand are much better places to go. However, most of these teachers live in rural areas, don't have email, don't have computers, don't have CD players, don't have books for the students, don't have photocopy machines, and teach up to 55 students in a class. Some academies don't even have textbooks for the teachers!

One of the benefits of this course, funded by the Australian Army, is that each academy (4 are represented in the class) will get a CD player, a textbook series designed for Australian immigrants, accompanying CDs, and a set of all the materials we 5 teachers have given them over the 4 weeks.

Next week will be our last week. I can already see that they are responding to the "communicative language teaching" that we have been demonstrating. A few have come to me at the break and said things like: "I don't want my classes to be boring - I want to wake up the students! My teaching will be different when I get back; my students will be surprised!" This is what we want to hear from teachers that come from a system of education in which the English instructor stands at the board, writes down lots of words, and the students pretend to copy all of them . . . all the while speaking Lao (teacher and students).

The teachers did mini-demo lessons last week in which I saw them use gestures, their voice, the board, and props and walk around the room to make sure "we students" were on task. And all the while the instructions and feed back to "us students" was in English. I wish the course could go on, but Friday will be the day when they go back to their respective provinces and try out their new "teaching chops". I will miss them.