Training a Future Teacher at ATP

 The very nice builing.

Above: The classrooms.
Below: the hotel room for practice at ATP

The kitchen and the restaurant.

I went to visit this training center in Phnom Penh with Ms. Chenda who is in charge or the tourism section at Saint Francois Technical High School. The purpose was to find a training program for a future cooking teacher. The young man is called Sopheak, he is very nice but:

-          Is he really motivated to become a teacher, a cooking teacher? He is at the Peace Center now; he agrees to go anywhere he is told… What is his motivation? 

-          His English is very poor: Is it a good idea to take one more teacher with a low level of English? Technical lessons are a great opportunity to teach English and a good command of that language makes a real difference on the job market. Should we help the teachers to develop their speaking skills? How should we do that?

-          This training program is quite accurate with a list of Khmer and international dishes he is going to learn and hopefully master. This will give him a limited but well- defined level a competency. 

-          This training is supposed to last for three months: shouldn’t we ask him to gain some real professional experience before becoming a teacher on of the problem of our technical teacher is to have no experience in their field of teaching.

Ms. Chenda told me that, being in Phnom Penh a week-end out of two, I could do the following of the training of Sopheak:

-          How should I use that opportunity to teach him some professional English?

-          How should I use that opportunity to open his mind on an effective way of teaching?

I’d say that the profile of Sopheak is the same as our teachers: No experience in their field of teaching + Poor English.

There is a challenge there… most definitely.