Keith in Sri Lanka

I was very pleased to get my Trainee Teachers back for a whole day's training today, even though yesterday had been such a great day. My core purpose at Tea Leaf has always been to have a significant impact on the quality of teaching, so spending today and tomorrow with the Trainee Teachers will certainly help me to achieve that. It's small steps, but as that famous Chinese proverb says: 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step'. I started the day by modelling a longer lesson today - still not a full lesson but longer than on Tuesday - which they then tried to replicate in small groups. Although it's small steps, they were significantly better than they were on Tuesday in terms of their level of skill, but more importantly from my point of view in terms of their confidence to stand in front of a class and teach. I know that tomorrow they will be even better, so there is great satisfaction with that. I had been asked to run some staff training after l...

I had a fabulous day today - quite honestly, possibly the best day I have had on this current visit to the beautiful Hill Country in Sri Lanka. There are some days, if you're lucky, where everything just seems to go wonderfully well, and today was one of those days. It was a day which made me feel, as I have so many times, just how worthwhile my time is volunteering with Tea Leaf, and why I have kept coming back time after time over the past 7 years. I only had one 45-minute session with my Trainee Teachers first thing this morning, but I was able to give them some quality input on how to use a whiteboard effectively, which is not as straightforward a skill as you might think it is. This is a very responsive group of Trainee Teachers, and I am loving working with them. My 'boss', Mr. James, asked me yesterday to interview two of my Trainee Teachers in order to create a Case Study for each of them. There is only one male Trainee Teacher, so we had picked him and one of the f...

I was delighted to work with the Trainee Teachers for a full day today, as I was keen to complete some of the work with them that I did with the Trainee Teachers at Tea Leaf Centre Nuwara Eliya. I will lose them again tomorrow, but fingers crossed, I will get them back for full days' training on Thursday and Friday. Although I won't be able to have as strong an impact as I did in Nuwara Eliya, I am hopeful that I will still make a significant difference to their performance as teachers. There was an assembly outside on a lovely warm morning where the new intake of around 150 students was distributed to the 7 classes that they will learn in during the Intensive English Programme and for the rest of the Main Diploma. We then set up the Trainee Teachers room as a classroom, so that I could model some teaching with them, with them using role play situations to develop their teaching skills, and it proved to be a lot of fun today. Lessons ended at 14:30, and soon after I was on my w...

Today was a day when plans shifted, which I was perfectly happy with, as sometimes they need to. I arrived at Tea Leaf Centre Maskeliya in time to have just a brief 45-minute meeting with the Trainee Teachers I am scheduled to work with this week, but they had to go upstairs then for other scheduled training. I sat in on that briefly, but then disappeared to take photographs, message a few people and catch up with a few other activities. It was an absolute hive of activity today, as almost 150 new students arrived to start the 2-week Intensive English Programme, which precedes the Main Diploma Programme each year. This starts with a one-hour English assessment test, followed by a very short break, and then another one-and-a-half-hour English assessment test - both vital to ascertain an entrance level of English as they begin their studies with Tea Leaf - but I couldn't help there. My hopes of having my Trainee Teachers after lunch were dashed, as the morning training session upstai...

As far as Sundays go, this was an extremely relaxing one, and it got off to a great start with a very chilled morning at Daya's. I left there around 11, as Ragu drove me to Dreamspace Academy in Hatton, on his way home with Daya to Colombo, where Daya was going to give wedding invitations to his uncles and cousins. My job was to help Donald produce a couple of promotional videos for a Public Speaking course and a Robotics course, which was very enjoyable. Kawya, Ladushan's wife, was already at Dreamspace Academy taking a Robotics class with a group of young lads, and Ladushan joined us afterwards, as we went on to Ladushan's family home for lunch. This was mainly because he has recently been in hospital with an, as yet, undiagnosed heart problem, for which he needs to receive further tests, and we wanted to check up on him to see how he was and to extend our best wishes to him for a speedy recovery to good health. Spending time with families here is such a special experienc...

The wedding invitations scenario continued today, as Vinothini's family made a return visit to Daya's home at around 11:30 to invite Daya's family to the wedding that Daya's family invited them to yesterday! In a similar fashion to yesterday, Vinothini was not allowed, as the bride, to participate in this visit, but it didn't have to be an odd number of people this time, and it was a much smaller affair, with fewer visitors and just a cup of tea rather than a full lunch. Vinothini's family is not supposed to give out their wedding invitations until they have formally invited the groom's family, so it's all systems go now, with both families set up to distribute wedding invitations to family and friends, preferably with a personal, face-to-face invitation wherever possible. If you think all this sounds quite exhausting, then you are correct! There is no 'save the date' and 'you'll get your formal wedding invitation in the post' here! I...