In the Classroom: Cambodia vs. PalFish

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☕ Coffee-Chat Intro

You know that feeling when your alarm goes off and instead of silence… you’re greeted by a rooster crowing at 5am?
Welcome to my new normal.

After years teaching online with PalFish — sipping coffee, lessons from the sofa, sometimes not starting until lunchtime — I’m now two months into life back in a real classroom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

And wow, it’s been an eye-opener. From anthem mornings where students stand silently with pride, to the sheer joy of watching them speak English with confidence (and yes, giggle at TikTok trends I’ve never heard of), it’s been a shift.

But with every new rhythm comes new challenges. Which is why I’ve built myself a little secret weapon: an Emergency Game Pack.

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 Tech I Use to Prep My Week

Sundays have become my prep powerhouse. Coffee on the table, laptop open, ChatGPT doing the heavy lifting. I feed in the curriculum, it spits out a framework, and then I add my teacher twist — scavenger hunts, escape rooms, online quizzes, the lot.

Wordwall has been a game-changer. Assignments, scores, keeping track of who’s nailed the past tense and who’s still wrestling with it — all at my fingertips. Prezi makes presentations pop, and Fridays? They’re reserved for Minecraft Education. Because if you want students hooked, let them build a digital English adventure one block at a time.

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Online vs. Offline: What Really Changed

Let’s be real — PalFish and Phnom Penh classrooms couldn’t be more different.

👩‍💻 Online PalFish:

• 30–40 students spread across a sea of digital lessons.

• Kids waiting for me to give the “right answer.”

• Safe, structured, convenient.

🏫 Offline Cambodia:

• Just 11 students, all standing to greet me: “Good morning teacher.”

• Anthem instead of flag raising.

• Students asking me questions, sharing opinions, even doing public speaking.

• Oh, and my handwriting? Looks like a spider crawling across the board after years of typing 😂.

It’s not safer here than China (phones do get pinched), but the warmth, the festivals, and the confidence of these kids make every day an adventure.

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My Go-To Classroom Emergency Games

Here’s the truth: classrooms never run perfectly. Festivals pop up, testing schedules throw everything sideways, or you walk in to find tech has failed you.

Emergency Games That’s when I whip out my Emergency Game Pack.
Scavenger hunts stuck on the wall. Hot seat for vocabulary revision. UNO with a twist (green = verb, red = adjective, yellow = place, blue = preposition). Whiteboard races, word tennis, quick-fire puzzles…

They’ve saved me more times than I can count, and they always get the kids laughing, moving, and speaking English without even realizing they’re “working.”

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Free Download 🎒

Want to save your own lessons when plans fall apart? I’ve bundled my 8 favorite zero-prep activities (plus a bonus sheet) into one handy PDF.

🎒 Grab the Emergency Game Pack free on Beacons

Use it, adapt it, and next time the projector dies or half the lesson vanishes to a surprise assembly, you’ll be ready.

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Closing Coffee Chat Wrap-Up

So, PalFish or Phnom Penh? Honestly, both worlds taught me something different. Online sharpened my creativity and gave me a global reach. Offline reminds me daily why I fell in love with teaching in the first place — real faces, real laughs, and the chaos of classroom life.

And if you take anything from this post, let it be this: always keep a game in your back pocket.

What’s your go-to emergency activity? Drop it in the comments — I’d love to steal (ahem, borrow) a few new ideas.

☕ Until next time,
The ESL Traveling Teacher