Teaching Program

Our Students

Our students come from all walks of life. We have high school students, university students, police officers, doctors, tuk tuk drivers, government employees, stay at home mums…  Students range from 13 to about 55 years of age, but the majority are typically secondary school and university students.  All students have at least a basic understanding of English, but all lack practice in speaking and listening with foreigners.

The students here can at least afford money to study, so are more fortunate than many.  It is worth noting that in many other volunteer programs, volunteers are working directly with Cambodia’s poorest, most vulnerable people.  By teaching at CWF, this is not the case. Some of the problems faced by Cambodia today need very specialised knowledge, skills, and resources. Our view is that these issues are best left to the experts, and our program offers a tangible way for anyone to help contribute to the continued improvement of Cambodia’s future, and experience Khmer culture first hand.

Student Fees

Our students pay US$45 per semester – that’s 11 weeks of classes and costs about one-third the cost of similar courses in Phnom Penh. We offer a number of scholarships, ranging from 20% to 100% of enrollment fee, and from May 2012 will offer scholarships to up to 10% of each semester’s enrolled students.

Students who study at our school are aware that they are directly funding development projects in rural areas and volunteers not only contribute directly to students in Phnom Penh, but also indirectly to the long-term sustainability of CRDT – Cambodian experts with proven experience in rural development.  As rural communities make up 80% of Cambodia’s population, this model of fundraising will hopefully prove more sustainable for rural communities and for Cambodia as a whole. As part of the experience, volunteers will visit and learn from CRDT’s projects in the provinces to gain an insight into rural life.

Course Structure

Courses are part-time and each group of students studies one-hour each day from Monday to Friday for 10 weeks, which gives the students roughly 48 contact hours.

Our volunteers teach conversational English courses designed to create an informal learning environment, with small groups (approximately 14 students per class) and fun, relevant topics.  Although students often ask for advice on correct usage of grammar, it is not the primary focus of our courses. We do not focus on grammar, reading or writing, but rather on putting English to work in real life contexts through role-play, activities and discussion.

You will teach up to five hours per day from Monday to Friday. We encourage our volunteers to spend time preparing for their classes so the students get the most benefit from classes.

Depending on student demand and the number of volunteers we have in a given semester, we sometimes offer one-to-one conversation classes. Our one-to-one students pay more, but benefit from their teacher’s undivided attention during their class.

Teaching Schedule

We offer classes at the following times:

• 6:00 am
• 7:00 am
• 11:00 am
• 12:00 pm
• 4:00 pm
• 5:05 pm
• 6:10 pm
• 7:15 pm

Our students often study at high school, or work and study at university 6 days per week, and have various family commitments on top of their CWF classes, so our schedule reflects the best times for our students to study English.

Our volunteers teach up to 4 hours per day, with a fifth hour reserved for back up and new student testing at the end of the semester. Our Academic Coordinator assigns your classes, and you will most likely teach from 6:00am to 8:00am, then have a break during the day before teaching two hours between 4:00pm and 8:00pm.

Should a volunteer fall ill or be otherwise unable to teach their class on a particular day, each volunteer is assigned a back up hour, and is asked to cover that class.

If we have a high number of volunteers, teaching hours may be reduced, but the back up hours increased. For example, if we have enough volunteers to schedule only 3 hours teaching per day, then everyone will be scheduled 2 back up hours.

Course Materials

There are course books for Levels 1 to 10 with general topics for conversation and activities, teacher guides for some courses, and we also have a range of extra materials. The teachers role is to help with pronunciation of the new words and their use in everyday English conversation.