Project Life
Volunteer to Teach English in Sri Lanka

Participants will be responsible for helping the children improve their English in lessons that use inventive teaching – using computers, games, music and sports – and teaching to suit the needs of the students. It is a very relaxed academy, and the teaching is based on activity methods rather than schoolbook learning.

Aside from the standard English teaching lessons, you will also have the opportunity to be involved in any number of other projects and educational activities. Examples of these are:

• Sports Teaching - One of the best ways to get young people working as a team is through sport. You might set up a local football competition, teach the students new sports, or organise athletics days or cricket tournaments.
• Educational days out - The children in Mahavilachchiya have never had much opportunity to leave their village. Most of them are from farming families who rarely travel to the local towns and don’t tend to have spare money for their children to travel. You might take them birdspotting in the neighbouring national park, or perhaps to Anuradhapura for a look at the ancient temples, or even on a camping weekend in the countryside.
• Other teaching - Particularly important are the lessons in Mathematics, Computing and Science. You could use games and other interactive methods to teach some of the younger children how to do basic sums, or take some of the older ones out on a biology nature walk to learn about their local environment.
• Fundraising - Many of the projects require funding assistance. For anyone with a background in fundraising or writing proposals, there is lots of work to be done here!
• Other projects - See the further information section for details on all of the various projects which you might involved in. During your stay in the village you could be put in charge of managing the e-mentoring programme (finding suitable international ‘mentors’ who can be paired up with students to help them with homework, writing letters, etc) or perhaps you could be involved in working alongside the local community to build wells / fences (e-Farmers project).

The opportunities for being involved in this village and its local community are endless. With an open mind and a willingness to get involved in a variety of projects, your time in Sri Lanka will be extremely rewarding for both you and the community in which you work.

Daily life takes a number of different forms. Volunteers will usually work for five days per week and have two days off. Teaching times are 2pm – 5pm on weekdays and 8am – 5pm at weekends. Depending on where you are living, you will probably have access to a bicycle to get to and from the school. Your journey won’t be more than a 20 minute cycle ride away.