Friday, May 18, 2012

Kok Gniew school year finishes

Hard at work with help of GVI volunteer
Kok Gniew Primary School had their last proper English class of the year today (Friday 18th May). Sadly the kindergarten kids had already finished up, but Year 1 & 2 did some final alphabet work, while Years 3 – 5 had a formal 6-question exam covering lower and upper case alphabet, common nouns and some simple sentence structures. Year 5 got an average of 60.8% on the test, which is not bad considering only receiving formal English tuition once weekly for a mere 3 months! The highest score reached 80% - an exceptional effort. Of course, there was much cheating...or ‘sharing with my friends’ as the Lao think of it!

Teachers kindly welcomed us with deliciously cold water and fresh, local, sweet pineapple (not letting us leave the school till it was all eaten!), and reminded us that next week we’ll enjoy a basi (blessing) ceremony all together – GVI volunteers old and new, along with teachers and students. The kids are all very excited about it, telling us we’ll dance and sing and generally have a muan good time!


Year 5 kids at Kok Gniew
Volunteers and staff alike are surely looking forward to the celebrations as a thanks for our involvement. GVI are keen to start a summer school once a week over the long vacation time, which signals the end of the academic year in Laos, and are very pleased at the School Director’s shared enthusiasm for the idea. It’s been a successful partnership to date and GVI are thrilled to be able to continue throughout the holidays.
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