Not cut out for teaching…

On our last day in Battambang we went for a look around a local monastery. As we entered the gates a monk stuck his head out of a nearby window and motioned for us to come over. Nervously we headed in his direction, and were met by a giggly teenage girl asking us to go in to speak to her teacher. Unable to say no to a monk, we were led into a small classroom of young Cambodians and the monk/teacher informed us that he was taking an English class and asked if we would speak to his students in English and ask them some questions.

We had no idea how advanced these kids were, but seeing as most of the country speaks pretty decent English, we presumed they did too. Our questions of ‘How did you celebrate the Khmer New Year?’ and ‘What do you want to do when you finish school?’ didn’t go down too well – I think they were expecting questions more along the lines of ‘What is your name?’ and ‘How old are you?’. As they shyed away from us and our ridiculous questions, our minds went even more blank and I felt more like a giggly teenager than the girl in the corner, who spent the whole time with her hand covering her mouth trying to stifle a snigger.

The not-very-good-teacher-monk eventually got bored of us trying to teach his class decided to use us for a more useful purpose – helping him progress with his English language skills! We spent the next 15 minutes chatting to him, listening as he told us about Buddhism and his life in the monastery and correcting his mistakes!

So maybe teaching adults is easier than teenagers….