“Our main objective was to create an interest in English and to increase the confidence of our students. Most of their learning is done from books and by copying from a blackboard. We wanted to just get the students speaking to us and listening to us, in order that they could actually hold a conversation. Even the teachers in our school struggled to understand us, as most have not spoken to a native English speaker since the war [in Sri Lanka] started.
“I learnt a lot while I was there. Making presentations to a roomful of people who speak the same language as me no longer seems daunting, and I feel like I understand the challenges of effective communication for a teacher, particularly across a language barrier. As for the children I was teaching, their spoken English did improve, either due to better pronunciation or increased confidence, while their listening was also better by the end of the month. They just seemed so enthusiastic and eager to keep learning.”
– Jon Green, Sri Lanka, 2005
Comments are closed.