Lao “Activity Time” at school (& blog article no. 200!)

Our time here is flying by. Every day is another adventure with different tasks and challenges to manage. It is very rewarding and a lot of fun to work with the teachers and the pupils. Additionally to the tandem-teacher program, where we plan lessons together with the teachers and observe their work to give feedback and help with their professionalization, we also offer different clubs during “Activity Time” from Monday through Thursday between 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. My team (VI) took over the “Science Lab“, “English Conversation Club“, and “English Games Club” from Team V, and, newly, offers a “Maths Club”. The pupils can choose between the different activities freely.

Before coming to Laos, I was not aware of how many other activities are offered by the schools themselves. In our first week I got to visit those activities. I enjoyed what I was able to see and took photos and videos. Madame Engel told me that it all started with the highschool graduate volunteers from her homestate Bavaria in Germany, whom she had invited to spend some time in Laos and work in Ban Sikeud Primary School back in 2012. They had the idea to offer some activities for the children after school at Ban Sikeud Primary School. Madame Engel was more than happy to set things in motion, and very soon they offered dancing, drawing, and sports for the children. This was so successful with the children that it was expanded to all three AfC schools and is now a regular part of every school day.

Let me start with Ban Phang Heng Secondary School:

Ping Pong

Karate

Sepak Takraw: This mixture between volleyball and soccer is an amazing sport to watch. Find out for yourself in the video:

Art: Take a closer look at some of the art projects of the students – within his project, the teacher implemented the idea of recycling.

Lao Dancing: Here you can see the pupils practising for a dancing competition, which takes place next month between schools in the Vientiane District.

Also there are volleyball and basketball, but at the moment the court is used as another Sepak Takraw field. This depends on what the pupils want to do.

At Ban Phang Heng Primary School and Ban Sikeud Primary School the teachers offer the following activities:

Lao Dancing & Free Excercises

You can find more videos on the Angels for children website.

It is nice to see how engaged the pupils are in the different activities and clubs. Only how they are able to do sports in that heat I will never understand.

Text by F. Stober

Photos & videos by F. Stober, J. Grüttner & I. Martin