Teaching in Sri Lanka - Andrew Siggers

Special Holiday teaching at Pahamune House in Kurungalla

I have just finished a 2 week placement at Pahamune House Shelter near Narammala (which is near Kurunegala) north-west of Colombo. The 75 children, aged 8-17, at the shelter are from the east coast around Kalmunai, and have been living at Pahamune House for the past few months while work is done re-housing their families back home.

The part I played was conducting English classes over the New Year holiday week (9th-17th April inclusive). I did more besides teach though, playing volleyball, cricket and going running with some of the children in the evenings which was great fun and good to get to know the children better. As there were so many children, with a wide range of age and ability, I decided to split them into three groups to make the class sizes more manageable, having each group for just over 2 hours a day in two sessions. The director of studies left just a couple of weeks before I arrived, and I was the only teacher there! Despite the daunting prospect of being on my own, it worked out well. The children probably had enough English by the end of the week with just me teaching, rather than having extra classes which would have been the case if there was another teacher there. It was also good from the perspective that I had free reign to teach whatever topics and how I wanted, which was quite refreshing from previous teaching I have done in England. I grew to like being the only volunteer there as it helped me to learn quickly about Sri Lankan way of life, food etc.

Despite only teaching for nine days we managed to cover a range of topics including clothes, food, transport, time, shopping, as well as a few adjectives: colours and size and shape. It was great to teach these children as they were keen and motivated right until the end of the week! I was also lucky as the children are used to the routine of going to school and so this made things more manageable for me with classroom management. The shelter had enough resources such as pens and books for every child and a white board and marker for me to use.

One highlight of the experience was that the BBC came to film the children after my week of lessons as they are in the process of making a documentary about the progress that these children and their families are making post-Tsunami. As I was still there at Pahamune, I was invited to conduct a lesson to be filmed, which acted as a good revision lesson as well as extending some of the topics touched on the week before. I think it went well (I hope?!). At least it was pleasing to see that the children did remember what I had done with them, so at least they were concentrating for that lesson!

Overall it was an enjoyable placement and, although brief, it felt like I was making a difference if only by entertaining them for this week in which they would have had nothing else to do. Hopefully they may get some more volunteers to continue teaching English, so they don't forget all of what we've done. I am now on my next placement, doing re-construction in Hikkaduwa for the rest of my three month stay here in Sri Lanka.


Andrew Siggers

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