teaching memoirs of Cambodia
teaching memoirs of Cambodia
Before I begin, I’d like to point out I have a degree, a TEFL certificate and prior to teaching in the Kingdom of Wonder, I’d taught English in Taiwan (good place to teach) and Vietnam (excellent students). So no garbage about teachers not being up to the job etc. Unless you mean I’m not qualified to teach students with learning disabilities and then you may have a point.
So, to Cambodia … I arrived in the Kingdom full of hope and optimism about making a difference to this poverty-stricken part of SE Asia. Naivety is a word which springs to mind. What a corrupt, pathetic country with little hope for the future.
ELT was where it all began. This supposedly ‘chic’ school encapsulates the ELT scene perfectly. Clever advertizing draws the students like moths to a flame – whereupon they receive minimal education using student books from the 1990s and tape players that are worse than useless. Value for money? I think not. As for the poor teachers – they get offered 1 or 2 hours during the peak 5.30pm – 7.30pm time slot. Not enough.
New World opened with great hope but it sadly went down the same path as ELT – money-grabbing at the expense of the students and teachers. Greed, pure greed.
Singapore International School – better organized than some other schools but full of sleazy Chinese/Khmers students and teachers and let’s say an eclectic group of foreign teachers who come and go in a revolving door. This is a classic example of a large, purely for profit Khmer language school.
The biggest joke of all is PUC – no organization, terrible student books but Khmers love it because … it’s big! Sums up Khmer mentality … it’s big so it must be good. What a joke.
Beltei? Well, what can I say about this piece of shit … run by a Khmer Rouge megalomaniac with his cronies managing the different branches. Festooning the walls are wrong English sayings such as “All that glitter aren’t gold” … sums up Cambodia – a complete joke.
Teaching in Cambodia slowly sucks the life out of you – that’s why so many foreigners degenerate into alcoholic, drug-taking whore-chasers.
So, to Cambodia … I arrived in the Kingdom full of hope and optimism about making a difference to this poverty-stricken part of SE Asia. Naivety is a word which springs to mind. What a corrupt, pathetic country with little hope for the future.
ELT was where it all began. This supposedly ‘chic’ school encapsulates the ELT scene perfectly. Clever advertizing draws the students like moths to a flame – whereupon they receive minimal education using student books from the 1990s and tape players that are worse than useless. Value for money? I think not. As for the poor teachers – they get offered 1 or 2 hours during the peak 5.30pm – 7.30pm time slot. Not enough.
New World opened with great hope but it sadly went down the same path as ELT – money-grabbing at the expense of the students and teachers. Greed, pure greed.
Singapore International School – better organized than some other schools but full of sleazy Chinese/Khmers students and teachers and let’s say an eclectic group of foreign teachers who come and go in a revolving door. This is a classic example of a large, purely for profit Khmer language school.
The biggest joke of all is PUC – no organization, terrible student books but Khmers love it because … it’s big! Sums up Khmer mentality … it’s big so it must be good. What a joke.
Beltei? Well, what can I say about this piece of shit … run by a Khmer Rouge megalomaniac with his cronies managing the different branches. Festooning the walls are wrong English sayings such as “All that glitter aren’t gold” … sums up Cambodia – a complete joke.
Teaching in Cambodia slowly sucks the life out of you – that’s why so many foreigners degenerate into alcoholic, drug-taking whore-chasers.
I thought it was the other way around. Degenerate, alcoholic, drug taking, whore chasers regenerate into inspirational teachers courtesy of their special (gradually aquired over a lifetime) super human power, 'immunity to disappointment.'spirit wrote: Teaching in Cambodia slowly sucks the life out of you – that’s why so many foreigners degenerate into alcoholic, drug-taking whore-chasers.
Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.
- Lucky Lucan
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That's the way I've seen it too. They either fuck up quickly and leave or sort themselves out.MoodyMac wrote: I thought it was the other way around. Degenerate, alcoholic, drug taking, whore chasers regenerate into inspirational teachers courtesy of their special (gradually aquired over a lifetime) super human power, 'immunity to disappointment.'
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
Too generalised. There are also those that can just about manage to deal with living their double life, but with occasional shit-faced-drunk morning appearances and more regular stoned/speeding school attendances.Lucky Lucan wrote:That's the way I've seen it too. They either fuck up quickly and leave or sort themselves out.MoodyMac wrote: I thought it was the other way around. Degenerate, alcoholic, drug taking, whore chasers regenerate into inspirational teachers courtesy of their special (gradually aquired over a lifetime) super human power, 'immunity to disappointment.'
I've seen very few turn themselves around here, a few more crash and burn, but by far the most plain limping along still feeding the monkeys on their shoulders.
Wouldn't have said that it was the teaching here that sent them that way though, seems to me it's more about the splendiferous array of lifestyle choices afforded by a totally unregulated system operating within an "unconventionally controlled" society.
- Lucky Lucan
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I was probably just being optimistic there, that's quiet a bit more astute than I was able to manage!
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
And I was making a joke.
Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.
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Walk in, do an honest job to the best of your abilities, don't let all the shit get you down and then walk out again at the end of the day with your head up.
Don't get involved with the monkeys you work with and have some solid away-from-work hobbies or business interests.
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
Don't get involved with the monkeys you work with and have some solid away-from-work hobbies or business interests.
Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk
Twitter: Not my circus, not my monkeys - I sold #K440
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I started a thread a while back that the OP could have played a character in: http://www.khmer440.com/chat_forum/view ... oody+women
So I guess...
So I guess...
Catchy conclusion, but is it also true?spirit wrote:Teaching in Cambodia slowly sucks the life out of you – that’s why so many foreigners degenerate into alcoholic, drug-taking whore-chasers.
I've always thought it's the other way round, i.e. people who are alcoholic whore-chasers and want to stay in Cambodia pick up teaching jobs to be able to stay and finance their habits. I mean, that's often the only job that is readily available for people who've fallen in love with the country, so long they are native English speakers.
A professional, upstanding teacher who realizes that he's hit a one-way street to hell, on the other hand, would probably just go back to Taiwan or Vietnam.
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1. Whilst I agree with you 100% on many issues, the first line I quoted could equally be applied to many western institutions of higher learning, including in the US/UK etc. Baseball/ (American) football scholarships? Joke!spirit wrote:
...was where it all began. This supposedly ‘chic’ school encapsulates the ELT scene perfectly. Clever advertizing draws the students like moths to a flame
Teaching in Cambodia slowly sucks the life out of you – that’s why so many foreigners degenerate into alcoholic, drug-taking whore-chasers.
2. I think that many foreigners are alcoholic, drug-taking whore-chasers when they arrive. Some of these succumb and leave/die, but some actually wake up and change. However, when in Rome, one needs to be primarily effective rather than radical.
3. Do you think that the admins of most schools here deserve better? Please don't think I mean that I agree with the scum factor, but you get out what you put in.
You pay peanuts...
You used to grow peanuts...
ירי ילדים והפצצת אזרחים דורש אומץ, כמו גם הטרדה מינית של עובדי ההוראה.
Is it true that the quality of expatriate teachers in Cambodia is
really truly worse than the quality of those
who toil in the same line of work in
Taiwan/Korea/Japan ?
The reference to whore-chasing is puzzling. Does one need to chase them?
Usually hookers stay in one place to chat and advertize their wares.
really truly worse than the quality of those
who toil in the same line of work in
Taiwan/Korea/Japan ?
The reference to whore-chasing is puzzling. Does one need to chase them?
Usually hookers stay in one place to chat and advertize their wares.
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Brilliant! One would think so, wouldn't one?Binky wrote:The reference to whore-chasing is puzzling. Does one need to chase them?
Usually hookers stay in one place to chat and advertize their wares.
Cambodia has unusual parameters.
ירי ילדים והפצצת אזרחים דורש אומץ, כמו גם הטרדה מינית של עובדי ההוראה.
Too pessimistic a post, Spirit.
Binky came here as a tourist 16 years ago. The country was still recovering.
14 years ago the journalist/historian Henry Kamm urged that the - please hold the merriment - 'International Community' ought to run Cambodia.
Cambodia functions. It doesn't function terribly well and it's unjust and cruel but so was Tudor England.
If a PUC degree is worthless, the market will inform the holders of PUC degrees of that sorry fact.
Binky came here as a tourist 16 years ago. The country was still recovering.
14 years ago the journalist/historian Henry Kamm urged that the - please hold the merriment - 'International Community' ought to run Cambodia.
Cambodia functions. It doesn't function terribly well and it's unjust and cruel but so was Tudor England.
If a PUC degree is worthless, the market will inform the holders of PUC degrees of that sorry fact.
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