Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia

This summer I taught English in Asral community centre in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Asral is a Tibetan Buddhist centre which offers hot meals in winter, financial support for poor families, Buddhism and English lessons and also runs felt making and vegetable growing projects. There were 5 classes at Asral with 3 lessons of 1½ hours each week, ranging from 6-9 year olds with no or little experience of English to 21-24 year old university students who could hold conversations. We split the classes, I taught the youngest kids and eldest children and we both took the student class. I found with the resources available that teaching younger pupils, which usually numbered about twenty, was very enjoyable and rewarding as mostly they were really keen to learn, I was also given a hand by a Mongolian high school student who acted as a translator which was very helpful. The older class that I took, around ten high school pupils aged 17/18, was more of a challenge but loads of fun as I felt I could relate to them and vice versa.

Taking part in the ELST scheme has been a great experience. I think that this summer has helped me mature and to broaden my horizons, I found teaching a very rewarding experience and living in Ulaanbaatar for seven weeks gave me the opportunity to see things from a different perspective. I would definitely recommend ELST to others.

Multi Education Centre, Dharamsala, India

4 ELST volunteers taught English at the Multi Education Centre at Dharamsala

Report 1

My placement was at the Multi-Education Centre in Dharamsala, India. The MEC is a non-profit organisation that provides teenage and adult students with English classes, cheap meals and health care. I spent five weeks teaching an Intermediate class and an Advanced class; I also sometimes helped with conversation after school and gave irregular one-on-one tuition to several Tibetans I met in the town. At the end of my placement I travelled to Delhi, Amritsar and Rishikesh for ten days.

Teaching is a wonderful way of meeting Tibetans and learning more about their culture, history and so on, all of which they are very keen to tell you about.

Multi Education Centre, Dharamsala, India

Report 2

For seven weeks I lived in Dharamsala, and there undertook three types of teaching: the main project, which was classroom teaching at the Multi-Education Centre; teaching a small group of monks at the Tibetan Library; and informal teaching and conversation classes with people whom I met in town.

I taught two adult classes at the Multi-Education Centre for a total of five weeks: an intermediate class of twenty people and an advanced class of twelve people. Students ranged in age from fourteen to about fifty; slightly more than half were lay, and the rest monks. I taught English grammar, writing, reading and speaking. With the intermediate class, I worked partly to a set syllabus, though as the advanced class had completed the syllabus, there was more freedom to choose what to teach.

At the Tibetan Library, a cultural centre, I taught a small group of three monks for one hour a day. This was a project that I had not planned before, but set up once I was there. It was part of a wider Tibetan Translation Workshop, for which many monasteries around the country had sponsored one or two of their monks to attend for three months. The aim is to preserve Tibetan culture by continuing study of the language, and also to bring it to a wider audience by translating texts into English.

I'd definitely recommend people to volunteer with ELST. It's definitely possible to get a lot out of the experience. For anyone thinking about teaching generally, ELST is an excellent set-up that provides all the information you need and good support, particularly in the planning stage. Dharamsala itself is a very friendly and welcoming (though rainy!) place. Further, it's a great way to learn about the Tibetan situation and offer something in contribution.

Multi Education Centre, Dharamsala, India

Report 3

I taught for 4 weeks at the Tibetan Multi Education Centre. I taught conversation classes every day to groups of beginners and intermediates (we swapped every day) for 1 and a half hours. The group size varied every day from 4 to 12 people depending on how many volunteers and pupils turned up. The pupils ranged in age from 13 to 30 and there were many Tibetan nuns and monks. Some of the pupils were newly arrived refugees whilst other were 3rd generation Indians. I also taught the principal’s wife English at her house in one to one tuition. These lessons were every morning and included mainly listening and speaking, concentrating on topics such as family, food and clothes. Although they were termed conversation classes, I also taught some grammar and vocabulary ( so writing, reading and listening were included.) I used magazines such as film and geography magazines as teaching materials. I would recommend this scheme to others as it was a truly worthwhile experience. I feel much more independent after this and feel a real sense of accomplishment!

Multi Education Centre, Dharamsala, India

Report 4

The placement was one of the best experiences of my life. Being in Dharamsala (Mcloed Ganj) was a fantastic experience. I have certainly gained greater insight into Tibetan culture, awareness of the issues currently facing the Tibetans both in Tibet and the refugees in India, and have made lasting and valuable friendships.

My teaching took place through Multi Education Centre, which offers free English classes to teenagers and adults. I started joining the daily conversation class, which had 5-7 students attending. Most of students were monks. I was the only teacher around so conversations took place in pairs. There were varying degrees of fluency amongst the students.

After a week of conversation I took over an intermediate class, which was far more challenging. I found that their confidence to speak and their basic grammar were the things to work on. I spent three weeks teaching them with a spelling test each day together with someone each day describing the weather and various other things to let talk. I worked on the basic definitions of types of word together with basic sentence structures.