Mirissa Temple school

Mirissa is a coastal village near Matara. Like every Sri Lankan village Mirissa has a Buddhist temple. Reverent Gothama Thero is one of the monks living in this temple. After the Tsunami in 2004 he made an educational centre in the temple, with the help of the Belgian army. On Mondays I teach English in this centre. In my classes there are mainly fishermen and housewives who live in the neighbourhood. Mirissa beach attracts a lot of tourists. Most of my students want to learn English to be able to apply for a job in tourism. 

Reverent Gothama peeping into my classroom in Mirissa. 

Kirimetimulla Temple school

Reverent Gothama has good contacts with the temple in Kirimetimulla, a rural village in the hill country. On Tuesdays I teach English in this temple. I'm mainly teaching afterschool classes to the children and youngsters who are living in the neighbourhood. In the more urbanized areas of Sri Lanka children go to tuition classes in the afternoon. The children in Kirimetimulla have no access to those kinds of classes. Apart from three groups of twenty-five children, I also teach one adult class. The students in this class are monks, teachers of the local primary school and voluntary teachers of the Sunday school. They want to improve their English so they can teach it in a better way to their own pupils. 

 My oldest group of children in Kirimetimulla

Matara Central College

On Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays I work in Matara Central College. This is a secondary government school with 3000 students. There are about 8 classes of 45 students in every grade. Most of the students study all their courses in Sinhala. In every grade there are about twenty five students, so halve a class, who take 5 subjects in English medium. I teach mathematics and science to those students. I will also arrange a science lab. The science teachers told me that professional material is too expensive and that they don't know how to create home-made experiments. I will gather material and write instructions for about 25 DIY-experiments and teach them where they can find more inspiration for other practicals. 

Since I spend most of my time in Matara Central College I decided to do the research for my thesis in this institution. Matara Central College is the only mixed school in the region, next to three all boys’ schools and three all girls’ schools. The schoolboard believes interaction between boys and girls is important for the students’ future so they are very proud to be a mixed school. However, when I was observing the classes I didn’t really have the feeling the classes were mixed. The boys sit on the right, the girls on the left. They are too shy to speak to each other. I want to investigate how cooperative learning methods can improve the interaction between boys and girls and if this improves the well-being and study results of the students. 

 A class in Matara central college

 

English and more

In December, when I couldn't work in Matara Central college because of exams and holidays, I was teaching at "English and more" on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. This is an organisation in Galle, owned by a Dutch lady, where children get afterschool English lessons. The groups are small and the teachers use a lot of active and playful learning methods. The children really enjoy learning English and their study results improve fast. It was interesting to teach here for a month, to see the difference between a government school and a private organisation. I will definitely use some of their teaching methods in my thesis research in Matara Central College. 

 The "kiddies" of  English and more.

 The "kiddies advanced" of English and more, hard at work

Happy nest preschool

Next to the educational centre there is also a preschool in the temple of Mirissa. I don't really teach there, but Elise does. However, when I have a free day I love to go with her to play, sing and dance with the adorable little children of the happy nest preschool. 
 
 On my first arrival, the teacher and some children showed me inside.
 Elise and I, meeting the preschool children
 

Melsiripura, house of light

Two of our fellow students, Milan and Zoë, do their internship in Melsiripura. The house of light provides "a home for every child". The children are deprived from a nurturing support of a home for many different reasons. Absence of parents or other relatives, parental inability to look after the child, desertion of children, loss of parents due to accidents and natural disasters and war are some of the common reasons visible in Sri Lanka. At the moment there are forty-five boys between five and twenty-five years old living there. During our December holiday Elise and I went to visit the house of light and helped there for a few days. It is a wonderful organisation. Aruna, the founder, is doing a great job to give this children a better life. Whenever I have the time I will go back there.

 Selfie with the boys    Christmas decorations at the house of light: the making of.