You can volunteer teaching English in Sri Lanka to dramatically boost future opportunities available for young people. Having the ability to speak English is a valuable tool, especially for career prospects and achieving future goals. Above all, conversing with fluent English speakers can encourage students to develop this essential language skill. If you are enthusiastic and have lots of positive energy then this is the project for you!
BACKGROUND TO THE TEACHING PROGRAM
Sri Lanka’s education system is pretty impressive for a developing country of its size. Universal public education is available from the age of 6 to the age of 18. However, many government schools, particularly in rural areas, receive minimal government funding. Especially considering the size of the communities they are expected to serve. The facilities at the schools are very basic. In particular, the classrooms get extremely cramped as average class sizes are around 40 to 60 children.
The ability to speak English is becoming of growing importance in Sri Lanka. The two main sources of income in Sri Lanka are from tourism and migrant workers going to the Middle East. Both occupations require the ability to speak English – the world’s global language. However, the level of English teaching in government schools is limited. Class sizes are large and the teachers’ English speaking skills are by no means perfect. It is only the middle and upper-class children who can afford private English lessons.
The children attend local government schools during the mornings but often can’t afford the tuition needed to excel beyond the basics. In Sri Lanka, these additional tuition classes are key to excelling at school. In other words, the government education system is too basic to be able to provide enough time and provisions for students. Certainly, there is not enough time allocated to learn English. The teachers will have basic English themselves, often using "parrot style learning". For instance, students only learn to repeat from a textbook, rather than understanding words in context. However, tuition classes involve a weekly fee that many of these families cannot afford.
Therefore it is no surprise that children from most low-income families speak little or no English. Our aim on the volunteer teaching English abroad project is to give the poorer children of Ambalangoda the same opportunities as their more wealthy peers. As a result, they too will have the chance to develop their ability to speak English and enhance their future career prospects. In addition, there is also a range of volunteering abroad with animals opportunities in Sri Lanka you can support.
TEACHING VOLUNTEER PLACEMENT EXAMPLES
A volunteer teaching English in Sri Lanka will be based at one of the locations where we provide free English lessons. Most importantly, you'll be helping in one of the local village communities, on our own after-school education program. In addition, you have the amazing opportunity to also teach English in Sri Lanka to young Buddhist monks.
Community Village School Projects - These English teaching projects provide an after-school education program, initiated and ran by our organisation since 2013. This is the main project for a volunteer teaching English in Sri Lanka. We work in a number of villages across the Ambalangoda district, typically supporting children from lower income areas. Each volunteer teaching English in Sri Lanka can help to provide free language lessons and education opportunities for these children.
Our aim is to further their English language development by providing these free after-school English lessons in the afternoons. These projects will take place in a makeshift classroom or community centre within the village. On the English teaching program, each class is divided based on the student's level of English. Class sizes usually vary from 4-15 children per class. You could be teaching students from 6-18 years old, depending on the current project need and availability. A local team member will be on hand to help when you volunteer in Sri Lanka.
Those who participate on medical or wildlife projects in the mornings are welcome to support our afternoon village school projects with no extra costs. Your project transport will be arranged for you and you can work alongside the teaching volunteers in Sri Lanka to help improve learning opportunities for the children. With more teaching volunteers at the project, more structure and planning can be done to achieve and track learning outcomes on a regular basis.
Temple Schools - Every volunteer teaching English in Sri Lanka will also have the option to enrol in our Temple School project. This may be joined in addition to the standard afternoon community village school project. The temple schools run in the morning, where you will teach English to novice Buddhist monks.
Many of the Buddhist monks speak very little English and the temple schools often welcome poor children from the community to come and learn English too. There tend to be around 5-10 students in each class, generally between 6-18 years of age. The project typically runs for 1.5 hours each morning and allows volunteers to add to their afternoon project commitments. It is important to note that project participation at the temple schools is optional, but the afternoon school project is compulsory for all teaching participants. For the reason that this is the core teaching project and the temple school project sometimes runs on a more ad hoc basis.
OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER TEACHING CHILDREN IN SRI LANKA
Return Airport Transfer - Your return airport transfer is not included in your Program Fee. Our local team can help arrange onward transfers to the airport or an alternative destination from the volunteer accommodation. Making specific arrangements once in Sri Lanka provides more flexibility as plans can often change and participants may be on similar flight plans. The costs depend on your method of transport and your final destination. This can often be split across multiple participants if you are travelling with someone else on the program. It is strongly advised not to travel by public transport or ridesharing apps back to the airport. Whilst this may be cheaper, it is far less convenient and comes with additional safety risks.
Top Destination - Sri Lanka is widely considered to be the best volunteer destination due to the superior local support, value for money and overall experience on offer in Ambalangoda. The local Sri Lankan team really go above-and-beyond to ensure each volunteer has the best possible experience and this is reflected in volunteer feedback. As a result, we believe this is the perfect destination for a first-time traveller who is looking for a little extra support, plenty of organised weekend trips and wants to get involved in some fantastic local initiatives in an exotic location.
Experience - For the English teaching program, teaching experience is not essential as the mere presence of a native English speaker is invaluable. As long as you are creative, determined and resourceful you can have a constructive impact on the development of the children’s education.
TEFL Course - We encourage volunteers to prepare as much as possible for their English teaching program overseas. You can make the most out of your time by completing our convenient, inexpensive and international accredited 60 hour Online TEFL Course. The cost of this course is only 150 USD.
Resources - On the teach English in Sri Lanka project, resources can be very limited. Volunteers are recommended to bring materials to the project each day to maximise their productivity and day to day involvement. It is therefore important for volunteers to prepare well in advance to get the most out of their teaching English project experience.
Weekends - Your project work in Sri Lanka runs from Monday-Friday and weekends are free. You are welcome to relax and hang out at the volunteer accommodation but most participants will use this time to travel and explore the country. As a result, you can check out our Sri Lanka Weekend Travel Guide for top tips on how to spend your weekend. We also run two separate weekend trips which you can sign-up to before you depart for Sri Lanka. We offer the Adventure Hill & Country Trip, the Cultural Triangle & Elephants Trip along with the Maldives Chill Out Trip with opportunities running every month.
