What do you think?

Year 12 Final English Exam 2018 can be found here:

cambodian-culture-and-language/year-fin ... 23384.html

garbage
you learn language by producing it, not solving puzzles
i'm not a pedagogist though

Phnom Poon wrote: ↑Fri Aug 23, 2019 10:31 pm garbage
you learn language by producing it, not solving puzzles
i'm not a pedagogist though

To be honest it’s not that different from the tests I had to do in highschool, say at the age of 14-15.

Final exams are coming up again soon.

All of the English exams I have seen for Cambodian students have some multiple choice questions where more than one answer is correct.

My first reaction was, they should get a native English speaker to advise them, so the questions are written in such a way that only one answer is correct.

I am starting to wonder whether it is done intentionally. Maybe they give marks for any of the correct answers, to help students get higher marks.

If you look at the books they use for studying English, many of them are from America or England, or somewhere not like Cambodia, and they do discuss things Cambodians have difficulty relating to.

It needs someone to write books ideal for Cambodian students.

In one exam they asked students to write the plural form of words. Some of the words they included were deer, octopus, wolf and sheep. Most Cambodians students have heard of a sheep, but never seen one. How many know what a deer, octopus or wolf is? Why teach them words they will rarely use in real life? These go to students who can't even have a simple conversation in English.

The understanding of Cambodian English teachers varies greatly. Some don't even understand some of the things written in the English books. Others have a good understanding.

explorer wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 7:00 am If you look at the books they use for studying English, many of them are from America or England, or somewhere not like Cambodia, and they do discuss things Cambodians have difficulty relating to.

It needs someone to write books ideal for Cambodian students.

In one exam they asked students to write the plural form of words. Some of the words they included were deer, octopus, wolf and sheep. Most Cambodians students have heard of a sheep, but never seen one. How many know what a deer, octopus or wolf is? Why teach them words they will rarely use in real life? These go to students who can't even have a simple conversation in English.

The understanding of Cambodian English teachers varies greatly. Some don't even understand some of the things written in the English books. Others have a good understanding.

The public school English books are actually tailored to Cambodia quite nicely. The issue is most teachers in rural areas have only very basic English themselves and extremely limited resources. Private school have books that are often culturally inadequate at times, but that's true for almost anywhere. The big publishing companies aren't going to bother making a "Cambodia specific" book, the market is tiny. They'll have regional versions of their main books like Middle-East, East-Asia, Russia, Latin America and so on, but even then those don't take into account every single country's specific cultural background. They're just broader books with slightly more specific topics, or pictures of women with headscarves or something.

As for deer, octopus, wolf and sheep, I'd wager 95% of Cambodians know those animals. Cambodia has deers, and Cambodians eat octopus (or "spider squid" as Khmers call it), and they've certainly heard of sheep and wolves before, so they're not totally alien animals.

newkidontheblock wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 10:11 am Another IELTS question.

Should the Cambodian government spend money teaching Khmer for those living abroad?

Clearly, questions about cultural preservation that are deeply ingrained in western culture.

But for a Cambodian who never grew up in a western country, is that even a fair question?

I'm not even sure I understand that question. Do they mean Khmers living overseas, or foreigners living in Cambodia? Seems badly formulated.

Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 12:12 pm As for deer, octopus, wolf and sheep, I'd wager 95% of Cambodians know those animals. Cambodia has deers, and Cambodians eat octopus (or "spider squid" as Khmers call it), and they've certainly heard of sheep and wolves before, so they're not totally alien animals.

They aren't common, but there are sheep here. Chams often raise them, I've seen them near Boeung Kak and a Cham friend has a flock of them in Takeo.