Volunteer English Teacher for monk students

Job at a glance

Duration: one to six months
Food and Housing: Basic room and nutritious vegetarian food
Key Activities: Teaching English (occasionally social science and history) and assistance in the office (letter correspondence, etc.)
Language level: ABC, beginner, intermediate (class 3-4)
Working Hours: 3 to 4 hours a day / 5 days a week
Required Skills: Good English language command, commitment, creative, flexible
Location: Vikasnagar (1 hour bus ride from Dehradun)

At Gongkar Choede the children monks are trained in traditional monastic disciplines such as recitation, chanting, ritual practice, offering rites and memorization of scriptures. Elder students study Buddhist philosophy and debate while the senior monks teach Tibetan language classes.
Though imparting our students with a monastic education is important to preserve our teaching tradition and serve the wider community, we feel the very need to provide the up-growing monks also with a basic foundation in modern education, to teach them contemporary subjects like English, social science, history and mathematics. We are thus looking for an ambitious male English teacher, who can teach these elementary subjects to our monks.

Classes

There are currently four English language classes held at the monastery. (1) Preliminary level (ABC, letter writing), (2) Beginner level A, (3) Beginner level B, (4) Intermediate level. The strength of the each class is between 6-20 monks. The students are primarily beginners, who are keen to improve their skills in conversation, grammar, essay and letter writing.

Schedule

The classes run from 10-12am in the morning and again from 2-3pm in the afternoon. The English teacher will teach 2-3 classes a day, from Monday to Friday. Besides that we the monks are taught basics of social science on a weekly basis.

The daily schedule at our monastery is not as strict as you might expect. The monastery conducts a variety of religious practices and observes fixed monthly rituals which make it difficult to keep a strict teaching schedule as followed in other educational institutions.

Housing

The teacher will live at the monastery in one of the newly constructed guest rooms with attached bath room. He will be provided tea and simple vegetarian food (three times a day). Laundry and internet facilities are available. If desired, the volunteer is invited to take part in the monastic activities to get an impression about life in a Tibetan monastery. Gongkar Choede is a very quiet and good place for reading and meditation.

Requirements

First and foremost the volunteer should be responsible and committed to his work. Furthermore he should be flexible as regards the time-schedule. He should be willing to create jobs himself, which entails that he is very much free in setting up his lesson plan and teaching activities. Furthermore it is very much desired if the volunteer, at times, organizes activities during special monastic happenings and holidays. He should have the minimum time commitment of one month.

Location

The monastery is located in a small Tibetan settlement a bus ride from Dehradun (Uttarkand). It is situated in a beautiful quiet forest setting, surrounded by fields and jungle secluded from worldly distractions. Our monastery belongs to the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism and was founded in Tibet some 500 years ago by the scholar-saint Gongkar Dorjedenpa Kunga Namgyal (1432-1496).

Preparations

We are happy to provide you with further information regarding the travel itinerary, the prevalent climate conditions, suitable clothing and about the application for a Protective Area Permit (needed for the stay at Tibetan settlements in India). We provide a pick-up service to the monastery from Dehli/Dehradun.

Please contact us for more information.