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Advice for Future Education Volunteers

18th March 2006
About to start teaching in Dumangas? Want some handy advice?

Well, here are my thoughts, comments and handy hints. Enjoy!

Handy Hints

Don’t necessarily take the grade that the teachers suggest you take.
Some volunteers have experienced frustration with the school dumping their worst behaved grade (generally Grade 6) on them.
You don’t have to have the hardest grade! Ask to observe other classes and then take the one that you want to do. It is important that you get satisfaction from what you do.
The school I was at (Pulao) were more than happy with anything that I wanted to do.
Me Sir! Me! Me! Me!
Kids love answering other kids questions here. Some just cant help themselves. I found it useful to get kids to stand up when they answer other peoples’ questions. They feel stoopid and everyone has a bit of a laugh, but it does stop them answering again. If they keep answering though, they stand on the chair and finally on the desk.
Tutorials
Almost compulsory if you ask me. You’ll quickly learn the clever kids names and the naughty kids names. The quiet ones often get lost. Running tutorial groups is a good way around this as everyone gets some attention. I would recommend you have designated groups – Group 1, Group 2 and so on – because the kids will love your tutorial groups and would attend everyone if they could.
Stamp your authority early on.
While Filipino kids seem much better behaved than western kids, they still can misbehave. The earlier that you make it clear that you’re a teacher and not some form of entertainment, the better.
Useful words and phrases

Pungko sa Bangko si Malcolm! - Malcolm! Sit down on your chair!
Si Malcolm! Hipos! - Malcolm, be quiet!
Pamati - Listen
Chakto – Correct!
Sala – Incorrect!
Si Malcolm Maalam – Malcolm is very clever
Sulat – Write
Quite useful when you want them to copy stuff down.
Subong! – Now!
Can be combined in all sorts of ways.
Sulat Subong – Write now
Pungko Subong! - Sit down now.
Sabat – Answer
A good word to use when you want to them to answer some exercises in their notebooks.
Hinay Hinay Lang – Go slowly…

Other Ways of Doing Stuff
I really enjoy getting up in front of the students and teaching. It is cool. Not all volunteers enjoyed it though. Some thought it was a waste of time as all you were effectively doing is giving the teacher time off to go the mall. Here are some other ways of doing things as suggested by other volunteers. Feel free to do them at your school if you feel that education is not happening!

The Filipino teaches the clever kids. The volunteer teaches the slower kids.

Advantages

This is making maximum use of the resources available and ensures a better quality of education for all students.

Disadvantages

There may be a problem in finding the necessary space to do this, as many schools do not have enough classrooms.
Slower kids tend to misbehave more than clever kids.

Only run tutorials
Get the teacher to take the classes and only take tutorials.
Project ROLY
Project ROLY is an alternative learning system here in Dumangas. It is aimed at anyone who wants to learn. For the most part, this is out-of-school youths, but also includes adults who want to learn.
Earlier volunteers experienced frustration in getting any sort of momentum with Project ROLY and eventually gave up. Since then however, some good structure has been put in place by the local government.
I’m sure that Angie, the mayor’s secretary and an infinitely useful person, can point you in the right direction if you want to get involved in Project ROLY.

Other Things

Chalk
The school gets a budget of 300 pesos a year for chalk.
This means that you get a piece of chalk about half the size of your fingernail per class. This obviously does not suffice, so the teachers have to buy their own chalk. A good way to endear yourself to the teachers is to buy them chalk. A box of 100 pieces of good quality chalk costs about 80 pesos.
Maths
I decided to teach math. The way they taught English was just too cumbersome and complex for me.
Some of the kids could have been good at maths if they. Just. Slowed. Down. Actively encouraging kids to slow down helped them immensely.
At my school (Pulao) they pinched some lesson plan books from a private school. These proved immensely helpful to me. Would be nice if you could get these, but there are no guarantees.
Homework
I wrote up a crap load of homework exercises for my students.
These can be found here. Help yourself.
Expectations for future volunteers
Giving stuff is cool. Keep in the mind though, that if you give gold bullion to your students, then the next volunteer will also be expected to give gold bullion…
Have fun!
Make sure you enjoy yourself will you are teaching. It’s not all about the kids. It’s about you as well. If you become miserable in what you are doing, then change something. Maybe only run tutorials. Maybe get involved in Project Roly. Maybe teach Math instead of English. Maybe change grades.

Bring lots of tissues
I’m about to leave after teaching here for 6 months. The things the kids are saying and giving me just breaks my hearts.
Saying goodbye is going to very hard. Meh. Maybe I’ll just stay here and teach for another six months…
Do what I did
If you found this document useful and helpful, then feel free to produce your own one and pin it to the board.

Feel free to contact me anytime you want.

Email: crazymalc@gmail.com
Web: www.crazymalc.co.nz

Happy teaching!

Malcolm Trevena

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