My Writing Workshop

Back in November, I started teaching an English essay writing class. Another PCV wrote up a syllabus for such a class, and I, needing somewhere to channel my energy, decided to use it to teach a class and see how it went.

First, I had all interested students meet in a classroom and write a letter of introduction about themselves. I told them I'd accept 40 students (out of the 70 who were interested) to be in the class. And I also told them not to cheat off each other (this is a completely futile command in Cambodia but you hafta try). I got home and spent hours agonizing over which students I would accept: a lot of letters were partially but not fully copied. Should I accept students who seemed talented but who had copied a third of their letter from someone else (or allowed someone else to copy a third of their letter)? Finally, Kevin told me to be a hard-ass, so I disqualified any students who showed any sign of cheating. This left me with only 35.

So! I had them all choose English names so I wouldn't go crazy trying to remember their Khmer names. (And even though I gave the boys a list of about 35 choices, Victor, Nicholas, and Philip were picked by more than one student.) And then we started learning how to write an essay in English. We talked about the main idea sentence, about putting details in the body paragraphs, about the introduction and conclusion. We talked about alternative ways to say "and" and "but." We talked about the difference between "give" and "allow" (which have the same Khmer translation). We talked about comparing and contrasting 2 things.

And then, when I had taught them all I could about essay writing, and I had only 24 students left in the class, we had a graduation party. It seemed daunting to plan a graduation party on my own, so I delegated that task to the students. They collected the money, bought the raw ingredients, made the (delicious) food themselves, and brought their VCD karaoke collections over to my house. All I had to do was make certificates.

So here are the students, checking out their scores from the class.



And here are some of the girls, preparing the veggies.



Here's the whole class (minus those who were absent for weddings [not their own weddings]).



I also had 2 students read their essays out loud to the class. This is Sarah.



And this is Victor.



Reflecting on the whole experience, I think the biggest thing the students learned wasn't necessarily about essay writing. Instead, they learned how to listen. I taught the class almost entirely in English, and my funny American-accented English at that, translating only when I had to. So the students were forced to listen to me, and listen hard. Even though they didn't learn exactly what I expected them to, they learned something, and that's all I can hope for.