Janice Dermawan
Secondary Student
Last week, AC Teach was held for the first time this 2018-2019 academic year! For the first time, AC Teach was held at Pondok Damai Orphanage, a Catholic orphanage for young girls.
At first, I was nervous organizing this program at an orphanage due to the unfamiliar environment there. However, as soon as I stepped inside the orphanage, all my fears were washed away as I saw more than 50 young girls with welcoming smiles and greetings towards us, all eager and excited to learn English!
I was so delighted to see such positive energy and eagerness coming from them, making us volunteers even more excited to teach them. We started off by a simple introduction, followed by the simple childhood song “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes!” Afterward, we divided ourselves into small groups, each group consisting of children from the same grade. We were able to personally interact with the children and played fun English related games alongside them, involving a lot of laughter and movements. Eventually, we started our English course, with each volunteer given the responsibility to teach English to children ranging from grades 1-9. We taught these children reading, vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and the different parts of speech, according to their grade.
Personally, I was having an enjoyable time teaching grades 3 - 4 reading and vocabulary, noticing how bright these children are. Despite their difficulties in learning English, they were wholly engaged and absorbed everything we taught them. Towards the end of this session, the children of Pondok Damai Orphanage astonished us by showcasing to us their performances and dances from lower primary, upper primary and even secondary.
Overall, I am honored to be given such an opportunity to organize a program as heart-warming as AC Teach and to play a part in the lives of the children in the orphanage! It was truly a touching and emotional day being able to interact and relate to the children, being inspired by their stories and creating new friendships with them! We were very sad to leave them, some of us leaving with tears in our eyes, but we look forward to the next sessions of AC Teach and our next meeting with them! We hope you can join us in creating an impact in these children’s lives!
