Teach in a Rural Elementary School

Given the dire condition of our rural elementary schools, you will be providing valuable support to overburdened teachers and mentor eager-to-learn Filipino children. These rural elementary schools are located in the rural villages of Tacloban City's neighboring towns. These schools are open to provide education to children from kindergarten to sixth grade. The fifth and sixth graders are sometimes combined into one class due to lack of teaching staff. There may be children older or younger than their classmates in a particular class. Some children attend school at an earlier age, some late, or others even skip school for a year or so. Volunteer for the Visayans opened the teaching project to provide support to the school. There is only one teacher per class handling several subjects in a day. Class population varies but usually between 25-35 in rural areas. The subjects the teacher handles include Math, Science, English, Physical Education, History, Music. Class is open from Monday to Friday except during holidays and school activities. Class starts at around 8:00 am, pause for lunch break at 12:00 noon and resumes at 1:00 pm to close at 4:00 pm. As a placement, the school benefits from having an extra teacher who can help in teaching English, Math, Science, or Music depending on the preference of the volunteer. Having a foreign volunteer who speaks English is useful as it gives the children the chance to learn and practice the language.

The volunteer’s role is in fact not as teacher assistant but as the actual classroom teacher. He/she replaces the local teacher for a particular period of time daily. The local teacher may or may not be in the classroom while the volunteer is conducting class. Often times, the local teacher will be working on something else while the volunteer is holding classes. The volunteer is required to work from Monday to Friday for at least 4 hours. Normally volunteers report to work in the morning from 8:00 am until 12:00 noon. A few volunteers would sometimes extend their time to teach in the afternoon as well. The volunteer’s role is to teach his/her class with his/her preferred subject.

English