INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
Classes for the 2009/ 2010 School Year
EARLY CHILDHOOD- Nursery (2yrs) to Kindergarten.
Early childhood ranges from Nursery to Kindergarten. In the 2009 / 2010 Ms. Tabi Gates will be the Early Childhood Coordinator. Ms. Tabi has had 15 years of experience in the USA in teaching Early Childhood. She has her Masters in Education so is both experienced and qualified.
Emphasis in these classes is given to speaking and listening in English. Early Childhood is not a bilingual program, with the exception of
Kindergarten which introduces Khmer. It is the perfect age for children to be immersed in a second language. They learn very quickly.
We are developmentally based and child centered. There is a lot of emphasis on learning through doing, through touching, through experiencing. We teach through the learning styles of auditory, visual and kinesthetic (touching).
In the Early Childhood classes there is a lot of activity, a lot of language, a lot happening. Our program is based on the highly successful Zoo-phonics method of introducing children to both sounds and names of letters.
Ms. Tabi will coordinate the Early Childhood so that teaching language is familiar to all the children and so that the transfer from one class to another will contain many known words, instructions, expectations.
Nursery, Pre-school 1 and Pre-school 2 are half day classes.
Kindergarten is for the whole day and in Kindergarten the children commence to learn bilingually - English and Khmer.
This program is such fun that it is a pity that adults cannot do it!!
GRADES 1 to GRADES 5.
Grades 1 through to 5 are in the elementary school. The five core subjects are taught - English, Khmer, Mathematics, Science and
Social Studies. As well as these subjects the students have the
special subjects of Swimming, Physical Education, Computers, Art,
Library and Music.
Teaching is done in English, except for Khmer language. Grade 1 continues the emphasis on learning English through Zoo-phonics.
The program is developmental and child centered. This means that we teach the children what they are ready to learn. It also means that there maybe many groups in the class since teachers are helping the children to be successful in the stage they are at. There may be different children in different groups for different subjects.
Khmer and English are taught concurrently. Half the class is taught Khmer while the other half, English. Then the classes swap. The great advantage of this is that teachers usually have no more than 11 children in their language classes.
Throughout the day most teaching is done through an enquiry method. This asks children to think, asks questions, connect what they know with what they don't know, reflect, write. There are also many
connections between each of the subjects so that what is being taught in one subject is referred to and used in another. For
example, if children are learning about rainfall in Science, they may use the graphing that is being taught in Mathematics to tabulate results.
MIDDLE SCHOOL / HIGH SCHOOL
Currently this is grades 6 and 7. These classes have three teachers - one for Social Studies and English; another for Science and Mathematics; and the third for Khmer language. As well as these subjects, the students have the special subjects of Swimming, Physical Education, Computers, Art, Library and Music.
Teaching is enquiry based and equips the students to research. Making connections between what they know and don't know is very important, as is creating a desire to want to know more. The students are taught at their ability levels and progress according to their understanding and grasp of the knowledge being taught.
We want to prepare our students for study at university in Cambodia and other countries. We do not yet know what program we will follow. We have time to investigate - we want to do this well. It could be the International Advanced Placement from the USA, or the Higher School Certificate from Australia or the International General Certificate in Secondary Education from England.
Whatever is chosen our students will be equipped to study in
Cambodia and other countries.
In the 2010 / 2011 school year we will introduce Grade 8 and in 2014 we will have classes in all grades from Nursery to Grade 12.
