My Khmer nephew is six years old and finishing up his first year in Kindergarten at Cambodia Adventist School in PP Thmey (from home now). The family is working class and CAS is the best they could afford in that price range. Despite our hope that he would pick up English throughout the year, and my helping with tutoring in English and Language Arts, a year in he can shakily recite some vocabulary and sound his way through a CVC word list, but is still completely non-functional in English. He's still talking in single words, mostly nouns.
I'm not entirely sure what goes on at school, but I don't blame CAS. My nephew lives in a house with 11 other people, his mom and aunts are barely literate garment workers, and he has had zero consistent English exposure at home since birth. He is in a class with 24 other Cambodian kids from similar socioeconomic circumstances. From my experience teaching in wealthier schools none of us would be able to afford, I know that by upper-primary the classes tend to operating several grades below grade-level expectations and the worst-performing kids tend to be the ones from backgrounds like my nephew's.
I REALLY think it would be to his benefit to be educated in his native language. But other than Zaman/Paragon, which is much too expensive, I don't know of any reputable (or "reputable") programs in PP that are taught in Khmer.
Does anyone have any recommendations? Thanks.
Khmer-medium private school in PP?
My thoughts on this:seidier wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 10:03 amMy Khmer nephew is six years old and finishing up his first year in Kindergarten at Cambodia Adventist School in PP Thmey (from home now). The family is working class and CAS is the best they could afford in that price range. Despite our hope that he would pick up English throughout the year, and my helping with tutoring in English and Language Arts, a year in he can shakily recite some vocabulary and sound his way through a CVC word list, but is still completely non-functional in English. He's still talking in single words, mostly nouns.
I'm not entirely sure what goes on at school, but I don't blame CAS. My nephew lives in a house with 11 other people, his mom and aunts are barely literate garment workers, and he has had zero consistent English exposure at home since birth. He is in a class with 24 other Cambodian kids from similar socioeconomic circumstances. From my experience teaching in wealthier schools none of us would be able to afford, I know that by upper-primary the classes tend to operating several grades below grade-level expectations and the worst-performing kids tend to be the ones from backgrounds like my nephew's.
I REALLY think it would be to his benefit to be educated in his native language. But other than Zaman/Paragon, which is much too expensive, I don't know of any reputable (or "reputable") programs in PP that are taught in Khmer.
Does anyone have any recommendations? Thanks.
One year in kindergarten and then already speaking English words (assuming he also has a grasp of the meaning), is not that bad at all.
(My) Junior started at around 4 years old, with a lot of English songs on DVD's, speaking/singing that fast, I could not even follow what he was saying.
Though, he is an artist/musician type, so that might have helped with that.
Now, he is doing Beltei, likes it there, loves his English teacher, though limited progress since he is very dyslectic. He speaks better English than his teacher, but his reading/writing skills are quite limited. Not to blame the school for that, I highly appreciate they do their best to help him with his dyslectic issues as much as they can.
IF the family is lower class, I think, main Khmer tuition would be the better way to go, with English as secondary language. This to avoid, he alienates from his family. You can not accomplish 2 steps higher on the society stairs, in just one generation.
Another thing to consider is, "how smart is he ?". Given the limited knowledge of English, that might also be an issue.
If the education is not supported at home, it will be very difficult to get him excel above what the family considers normal. With the consequence, when it is raining, they do not bring him to school. Take care he does not go outside to play, because that's dangerous, etc. Or so to say, he will miss those things, First World kids do experience outside school.
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I could recommend somewhere where the classes are taught bilingually through early years and primary, and then secondary they follow an international curriculum as well as following the Khmer national curriculum for those that want it, which is the majority. It is difficult to say if it would be affordable though as it is around 5-6000 per year, is this too expensive?
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