Volunteering for an NGO School in Bali: Listen to Sophia's Story

I stayed for two months in the school project in Kerobokan. There I helped in the Kindergarten and taught English in Primary School. I also supported the German teacher in the 11th and the 12th classes and the two other volunteers and me organised a fundraising project that shall support the teachers getting a better education. It was a painting class for children from Kindergarten. I really enjoyed my time in Bali. The people are really kind and helpful. The homestay was very nice and clean. The most challenging thing was learning how to drive the scooter. I was really scared about the traffic and it took a while that I got used to the rules on the street. My first week in school was a little bit unorganized and my schedule changed often. But after the first complications it worked out well. Most of my time in the project I helped in Kindergarten. There I supported the children to color, write and calculate. During the lessons, I had to help the teachers, that the students pay attention and that they are concentrated.

In the primary school I was in the second and in the third class. In the second class I arranged the lessons by myself but the teacher always was with me in the class and helped me. We learned about transportation, weather and simple past. Most of the time we sang songs and played games for remembering the vocabulary. I had the impression that the students were really interested in myself and in learning English. I had a lot of fun with them and enjoyed the time with them. In the third class I assisted the English teacher and helped the students with their tasks about communication. Sometimes I felt unneeded and had nothing to do in this class. The German class was a really nice experience for me.

I never taught my own language to someone else and it was harder than I expected. Before the class the teacher started and the other volunteers and me prepared the class together. We taught them about grammar and pronunciation/communication. Also we had to do tests with the students and give them grates but I didn't felt really able to do this. But all in all I think the students were very interested learning with us and I was happy that I could help them improving their German.

The fundraising project was the most difficult job I had to do. Just the other volunteers and me were organising this as a painting class for the students from the Kindergarden. But because of the communication problem the start of the project was a little chaos. After a while this class worked out good and we had a lot of fun creating pictures with glue and glitter or with fabric together with the children. I also taught in a NGO school. There I was in the morning classes and did English classes. The students from the class of Ms Marlina always were excited and I had the impression that they were really thankful having the possibility learning English. I taught them about the weather, animals and transportation. We played games together and also sang songs or coloured pictures to remember the words. I enjoyed a lot the time studying with them. In the class of Ms Debora I didn't felt that welcomed. I had the feeling, that the students weren't interested in me neither in learning English. There I also had a big communication problem, because the teacher couldn't understand me nor the students. I tried to taught them about the weather, fruits and animals. We did some games and painted pictures. Once a week I had the same classes together with Maja, the other volunteer. That worked out really well and we did games with the students to improve the pronunciation of the English words. We also had one sport class were we played sport games together with the students. That was a lot of fun and I had the impression that the children enjoyed it a lot.