Immersion’s a cool way to teach a language. You spend time in an environment where everyone speaks the language, and you just have to figure out what’s going on. Unfortunately, PIO is no immersion environment. Nor is my one-hour-a-week speaking class. For the former, the kids still talk to each other in Khmer during my class;¹ for the latter, it’s just too little time.

So once you’re back to a multilingual environment and a more traditional teaching style, how much do you use the students’ first language?

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The most common form of personal transportation in Cambodia is the motorbike, or “moto”. As such, it’s pretty common to see three people on the back of one moto; we’ve done it ourselves. Heck, even four isn’t too uncommon. We’ve probably even seen five at one point, though only if you count kids as full people. But hey, this is how you get everywhere. Why stick to just people? We’ve seen…

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Bonus post: photos from a weekend trip to Kep with Nina, Kuoch, and Tabea! Check them out on Facebook.

The seaside town of Kep and the accompanying Rabbit Island (Koh Tonsai) have been on my checklist ever since Piseth came back from a trip there in September or October, citing it as one of the most beautiful places in the world. While I’m not sure I’d give it that much of an accolade, it was a wonderful weekend (though punctuated with a number of strange troubles, everything just a little bit off).

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