Aneesha Singh, co-president of TASSEL and senior

What is TASSEL and what is your mission?

TASSEL is an international organization with chapters across the globe that help teach English to low-income students in Cambodia. The organization itself stands for Teaching And Sharing Skills to Enrich Lives. 

How are you helping children in Cambodia?

We hope to provide more vocational opportunities for (our students) in the future. Learning English in addition to their native language Khmer, can open a lot of doors in receiving higher education.  

There are two teacher types our club members can participate in. The first are VSee calls, which are twice a week video lessons with a classroom of students. Partner club members work with the class teacher to help students learn phonics (pronunciation) rules in English. We also have a writing instructors and pen pal system. Students will send essays to our club members and they will correct mistakes and help the students learn grammar rules. It creates a really fun system of back and forth writing and you can learn a lot about your student.

How often do you guys meet/what do you guys accomplish during your meetings?

We usually will meet once or twice a month for fundraising activities like our cookie fundraiser in the winter. A lot of the work in TASSEL is self-led, so we explain how to format letters you send to your student or how to lead a VSee call. 

How can new students join?

Students can join next year when we open IP instructor positions, and they can follow our Instagram for updates!

Gina Kong, writing connections officer and junior

What is TASSEL’s mission? 

 TASSEL is a nonprofit organization that helps students in Cambodia with their English education. Our entire goal is to help students in Cambodia be able to have the opportunity to learn more, because they’ve had a lot of difficult situations, with the Khmer Rouge reign and what has happened in Cambodia. So we try to help students overall with their English education. 

What’s the goal behind teaching them English? 

It’s a global language that can open doors to a better education and career opportunities. So by teaching English, we can help Cambodian students gain valuable skills that can lift their families out of poverty. And because of what happened in Cambodia, a lot of the students that are there come from underprivileged backgrounds, and teaching them English allows them to have access to jobs, tourism, business and a lot of different things which can improve their futures. A lot of the students I’ve taught personally want to become teachers. It’s honestly a cycle of teaching them English and having more opportunities for the rest of Cambodian students. 

How does TASSEL go about teaching students English remotely?

During my freshman and sophomore year, I was teaching English to students online through Google Docs. They would give us their essays or different paragraphs of what they were writing about. There were a lot of different prompts, including what they wanted to do or who they wanted to be. It’s like an X or O grammar format to help correct their essays and give them examples of how to fix it. And then at the end, we’d always write a little letter to them talking about how great they did. And then this year, I started doing VSee, which is an online platform where we get to talk to the kids face-to-face.  And my friend and I decided to teach one of the lower level classes. Which is a whole classroom of students, and we get to go through the different vowels right now. I think we’re on the letter I right now, so we go through different words of how the letters sound. For example, there’s short A and then long A, and we just go through a bunch of different games with them. 

How often does TASSEL meet?

We try to meet once a month as a club, but when we’re doing online teaching, we teach every Wednesday and Sunday. 

Why did you decide to become an officer for TASSEL? 

TASSEL has such a meaningful impact, and it does so much for these students. Overall, when I just joined TASSEL, I thought it was such a wonderful opportunity for the students in Cambodia. So I wanted to create a bigger impact because volunteering was already meaningful to me, but I realized that stepping into this leadership role, which I could help shape the direction of their work and support their members and create opportunities for growth for myself and the people that we were teaching was really rewarding. I wanted to be someone that others could rely on, whether it’s organizing lessons or encouraging new volunteers, or finding ways to engage students. Overall, it’s helped me, lead with purpose and a lot of passion, and it’s taught me a lot of different goals, like responsibility, teamwork, and then consistency. 

What plans for growth did TASSEL have this year?

We wanted to expand the volunteer engagement and then increase the consistency in lesson planning. TASSEL used to be a really big organization at Carmel, but then we had a lot of people not (join) the club for a while because of COVID-19 and a lot of different changes in school, but we wanted to grow our volunteer group. Because we had a lot of people, but I think we have about 30 people in our Indiana chapter right now, so we wanted to have more people teach English, and then increase consistency in their lesson planning.

 What can students from both Cambodia and Carmel alike benefit from TASSEL? 

TASSEL is an organization which can make a big difference in someone’s life, like those kids in Cambodia. And teaching English to these students isn’t just about learning academics or learning new words, but it’s about giving them new opportunities or cultures, and building meaningful connections all around the world.  And overall, TASSEL gives these students a platform to step out of their comfort zones and take on responsibility in a way that really matters to them.  So whether I’m leading a class, preparing a lesson, or encouraging others to get involved with TASSEL, people are able to gain valuable skills and teamwork, like public speaking, time management and cultural awareness about what’s going on in Cambodia. What I love most about TASSEL is seeing the students and receiving messages from them after each one of our lessons. The students all stand up and say thank you and goodbye, and like seeing their smiles on their face is just so rewarding. When they understand something new or watching their confidence grow over time reminds me how much I’m able to help them, and it also helps me understand that they are given such, how do you say? They honestly teach me sometimes too, it’s a lot of responsibility, and I’m able to appreciate what I have, even through a screen. And so I get to be part of this passionate, supportive community of volunteers, who all want to use education to empower others. 

Mary Lynne Halfmann, TASSEL sponsor

Why did you choose to be the sponsor of TASSEL?

I’ve been the sponsor for two years. I knew the students involved and so they had asked if I would be available. When I found out, it’s something that I’ll continue to do because these students are teaching Cambodian students and I think that’s really cool so I totally support the vision and mission of the group. 

What’s your favorite part about the club? 

 My favorite part is that there are a lot more kids involved than people would realize. The fact that we have students here who want to teach younger Cambodian students English and help them with their writing skills and speaking skills I think is huge, and they work directly with the teachers there. I think it’s an incredible experience for our students to be able to do that. 

What’s an accomplishment TASSEL has achieved that you are especially proud of?

We have the meetings at the beginning of the year and [the executive board] go over specifics and the kids actually have to take quizzes and such so that they know the different skills that they have to teach. And so all of that kind of plays into what they do, they’re very knowledgeable. I don’t know where they get all that because they never come to me for help.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

It’s important to serve our community, but there are these young kids, an example Cambodia, that are excited and energized, and it’s neat to be able to work with those young children and know you’re having an impact globally on people’s education. I think that that’s really important, especially during this time, and creating bridges, and relationships building. I think that’s important in our world because there’s always diversity and conflict.