Monday 27 April 2015

Nhek Sreyroth's Story - a Scholarship Student from EYC

Sreyroth is a third-year student at the Institute of Specialized Economics and Finance in Phnom Penh, majoring in Accounting. She is now enjoying her second semester, and her favorite subjects are English for Business, and Marketing.

Sreyroth is the youngest girl in her family. She is 21 years old, and has two brothers and one sister. Her father is a policeman and is going to retire this year, while her mother, aged 50, is a housewife. One of her brothers and her sister are lottery sellers, and the other works at a micro-finance institution. Sreyroth lives with her sister’s family.
Speaking with a broad smile, Sreyroth said she has received a great opportunity to get financial support from EYC, funded by CamKids, to help share her family’s burden since the first year of her study. In return, Sreyroth always tries her best at school. She really likes her school where the discipline and quality of education are so good.

Besides her study, she works part-time at the Music Arts School as a receptionist. Her job also can support a part of her school fees and study materials though she doesn’t earn very much. However, Sreyroth plans to look for a better job which is more suited to her study background as an accountant, and once she finds the job, she will change her study to the evenings.

In her spare time, Sreyroth likes reading educational story books in English and humour. She really loves sports such as biking, dancing, skiing, and soccer.

Monday 6 April 2015

CCC School Update

The CCC school continues to grow, with a new school building opened in March last year, and, following requests from the local community, an additional grade (4) added in this academic year. The teachers and staff put their hearts and their commitment into teaching kids not only an academic education but also about social awareness, hygiene, healthcare and nutrition and about broadening the children’s experiences as well.
As a result, the kids are attending classes every day and their ability has improved considerably. Thirty-three students graduated from CCC grade 3 and jumped straight in to government schools, 10 into grade 5, 15 into grade 6 at Reaksmey Samaki and eight into grade 7 at Chanthnal secondary school for the academic year 2014/15. CamKids is immensely proud that the children have done so well and this is a great testament to the skills of our teaching staff and the motivation of the children and their families. 
English Teacher
The English program has been provided as an additional resource to help the children to improve and gain extra skills for their future. The English classes run from Monday to Friday. There are six classes at CCC, taught by Mr. Piseth SOK, a full-time English Teacher, starting from 6am and continuing at various times throughout the day until 6 pm in the evening. 
The course for the English classes officially ended in September and, in accordance with our schedule, the children were tested. The written and oral tests were taken in October with a help from a volunteer, Moya Sharpe, from Australia. Both Piseth and Moya worked hard together to test every child to make sure they could move up to the next level. The result showed that 80 percent of children can go up to a higher level, but the remaining 20 percent didn’t do well enough in their exams because of a lack of study time. However, these results were very encouraging and showed that, in the last six months, all the children continued to show improvement in spelling, writing, speaking and reading. All the children practiced their English with CamKids staff and any foreigners who visited CCC. 
In October, staff and pupils from Sorell School from Tasmania visited the school and this was a great opportunity for the children to practice their English. Piseth has worked extremely well with all the volunteers who helped with teaching English. The new term started in early November, and saw a total of 194 students joining the English classes with Piseth. These are divided into six classes starting from 6:00am and continuing throughout the day until 6:30pm. Piseth keeps working hard on researching for ways to improve the teaching methods, materials and techniques.