“What was the funniest experience during your internship that made you laugh?"
Like my Cambodian partner Mister Sophea once told me “You should always smile to people, because it’s our culture”. There is a lot that made me laugh during my internship, but my funniest experience, as well my first experience, took place on the 14th of February 2018 at 7 o’clock in the morning. I should teach English and Sport in grade 3. I was going to teach without any experience, nor expectations. This first lesson was meant to be an introduction lesson. I prepared to go outside the classroom with the children and do a lot of different exercises, a trust exercise in pairs of two, was one of them.
At first, when the 73 children were sitting in the classroom, it felt like a big class but it felt do-able, because they were ordered from small to tall with mostly 3 students at one desk so you had a good overview. But then, when this same class of 73 children came outside the classroom, I had no idea anymore, they were so many, this would never happen in Belgium, it was almost one school. This was quit impressive for me and during my internship I think this was also one of my biggest challenges. How do you manage a class of 73 children? It’s called classroom management. At first you think it’s impossible, then you start observing the Cambodian (student) teachers and learn so much from them; but at the end you still cannot grasp it properly and thats why it remains so interesting.
