The Cambodian public schools use a book called English for Cambodia that supposedly integrates culturally relevant content with English grammar points (non-explicit) in a series of 6 books. Theoretically, 11th graders learn out of Book 5.
Chapter 6 of Book 5 is entitled The Importance of Education. The second section is called Life Skills. The grammar points to be focused on in this chapter are "either...or" and "neither...nor." Just to give you a little taste of the, um, really interesting content of the books, I reproduce for you the first third of the selected text.
"Education has various purposes. One purpose is to prepare students to meet the demands of society. Society, however, needs well educated girls as well as boys. Both girls and boys must, therefore, be given the same opportunity to go to school and find a job when looking for employment. They can hardly succeed in this, however, if the content of the materials they are provided with focuses neither on the real needs of society in general nor relates to both boys and girls in particular. Rather, educational materials need to focus on life skills - skills that are needed for work and everyday life in society and at home. Without them, students will neither be able to learn anything useful for themselves, nor want to take their education seriously."
The irony is painful.
Monday, May 19, 2008
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