Introduction to TASSEL Teaching.
In this specific volume, we will discuss how to set up and register through the group video chat and screen-sharing software tool, VSee. We will also discuss different technological scenarios you may experience when teaching and what to do in these situations.
Here, we will walk through how to navigate through the TASSEL Teaching Training Website. We will present where to find specific resources, how to use them, and the importance of each tool.
We will teach you the rules, sounds, and methods of letter "A" and how you should teach your students.
We will teach you the rules, sounds, and methods of letter "E" and how you should teach your students.
The current situation of Cambodia is one of extreme physical poverty. Stricken with extreme physical poverty and still engulfed by the psychological trauma of the Khmer-Rouge genocide, millions of Cambodians suffer from continual daily stress arising from illnesses, deaths, and lack of access to medicine and education.
TASSEL (“Teaching And Sharing Skills to Enrich Lives”) is a public charity established in 2012. Initially TASSEL's sole mission was having U.S. based, trained volunteers provide free English classes over video conferencing to the poor in rural Cambodia. But it has quickly evolved to include actively encouraging, recruiting, training and funding high potential Cambodian adults to become teachers as well as providing food aid, medical care access and other sustainability services to the poorest families who have limited capabilities to earn income. In just five years, TASSEL has grown from six U.S. volunteers, two local teachers, and twenty local children to 800 volunteers, 27 local teachers, and 2200 local children (as of January, 2018.) Volunteers are located in the U.S., U.K., Japan, South Korea, China, Singapore, and Israel. The Cambodian teachers and children are in 5 rural villages in Battambang and Kampong Cham provinces.
With the guidance of TASSEL’s founder, Joji Tatsugi, my goal is to focus on refining TASSEL’s current material for foreign teachers, such as myself, in order to ensure consistency and quality amongst the teachers and volunteers. Because of the direct positive correlation between education and the nation's depleted socio-economic development, my project provides high-quality English education to help Cambodians break the chain of poverty. But more importantly, by using the existing teaching training platform/website mandatory for all teachers and volunteers to use and train with, I shared films and videos to discuss the key basics as well as the crucial, but minuscule details that our teachers may forget or ignore. By demonstrating and presenting this information up front, it emits diligence and outstanding work amongst our current volunteers, but also for the future generation of teachers and volunteers.
This summer will mark my fifth year apart of TASSEL, as well as my fourth summer trip visiting Cambodia and the many rural villages, schools, teachers, students and families. When I first heard about TASSEL in Seoul 2012, I discovered it through my older sister, Lauren Kang. As a 12 year old at that time, I was hesitant towards trying anything new, especially if it involved helping others that I did not know. Although reluctantly forced to travel abroad, it wasn’t until I travelled to Cambodia in 2014 that I truly understood TASSEL’s message and fell in love. Serving for the past five years, I have slowly grown apart of and understood the deeper mission of this organization - a role that uses each one of the many of thousands of volunteers and the many unique skills that each possess and to transform the lives of the families, teachers, and students. Yet, it is only through us, volunteers, that we can continue to see such an organization, but more importantly, the Cambodians, grow. It starts by making sure that the work we do, the goals we set, and the information/material we teach, is all 110%.
Realizing this, I understood that it was my job to focus on refining the materials that volunteers use, in order to create a concrete consistency and quality for the Cambodian students to learn, but more importantly, for the students to realize the that these foreigners and teachers from around the world, love them and are teaching them in hopes that these bright and unique children will break the cycle in Cambodia.
Thank You
Timothy Kang
TASSEL volunteer, Timothy Kang (right) , teaching a student of Samrang TASSEL school, summer 2017.