Bong Maly

How will you teach a 47-year old lady who cannot recognize the alphabet and distinguish sounds of vowels and consonants? That really is a daunting task for me.

But I will not give up.

I've been teaching Bong Maly for two weeks now.

Bong Maly helped us a lot in the church. She is very active in the ministry. She invited a lot of people to attend our activities. She is also tireless in sharing the Gospel.

She is like the "Chosen Lady" that Apostle John wrote in his epistle. The only difference I guess is that she is married.

More than a month ago, she shared to our Pastor her desire to work and help her husband. Our Pastor recommended her to work in one of the Christian NGOs here in Cambodia. There is one obstacle though. That NGO prefers someone who can speak English.

That is why I am committed to help her in learning English.

We are now studying various sounds of consonants and vowels. We are following Montessori method which was developed by Maria Montessori. We actually started with the sound of M because according to Maria Montessori the sound of the letter M is the easiest to learn.

Slowly, we are now blending sounds together. We now have around 20 words in CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) pattern that we are trying to memorize.

Guess how many words in CVC pattern that she can read? One. That is right. One. The word "sit".

But I am not giving. I am very positive that she can learn the English language. With perseverance and prayers to God, we will be successful.

I will really be happy if she can get that job in that Christian NGO and if she can communicate with her bosses there in English.

Please help me God.