A Letter from the Founder
Welcome to Gateway to Khmer! Here our highly-trained staff teach Khmer with excellence using an internationally-based curriculum. The school was co-founded in 2014 by myself and several others who were frustrated at the lack of quality Khmer language training available. Now Gateway to Khmer offers high-standard Khmer language classes to hundreds of expats each year, equipping them to live and work all throughout Cambodia.
I came to Cambodia in 2011 and found it hard to learn the language. I longed for an organised curriculum that progressed my learning in a logical way. I wanted trained teachers who could correct me and teach me the language I would need to live and work here. I wanted to understand the sounds of Khmer and I needed help to master them. I struggled to learn well, moving from school to school, tutor to tutor, wasting time and money. Gateway to Khmer was born out of my own frustration in learning Khmer.
My background is in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and I have worked in many countries as a teacher. In London I worked for many years as a teacher trainer, training hundreds of novice EFL teachers on the Cambridge Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) course. I have studied Second Language Acquisition, language programme curriculum design and assessment. I have a passion for Cambodia, for equipping people to live and work here and for training language teachers to teach with excellence.
G2K is a school founded on core values of quality, professionalism, respect and excellence. The curriculum, based on the American Council of Teaching a Foreign Language (ACTFL) scale, takes a learner from Novice to Low Advanced in ten levels. The levels build on each other and seek to develop competency in speaking, listening, reading and writing. Our teachers are trained over a 6 month training period and are skilled professionals creating learning environments that are engaging, productive and fun. Adults don’t learn a second language like an infant; they have cognitive ability and like to learn rules and patterns. At G2K we help learners understand how the grammar of Khmer works. We teach new language input in terms of grammar and vocabulary every day and then learners meet and use this new language whilst working on the four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing. In the earlier levels we prioritise pronunciation, teaching where the sounds are made and how to hear them and make them. Later levels focus more on literacy. At G2K we believe in teaching language AND culture and see how they must be learned together to thrive here in Cambodia.
I am so proud of G2K team and what we have achieved…… People learn better and faster with us.