So far, teaching has been outstanding. Originally, I thought it would be an interesting aspect of this experience but that I would enjoy the traveling and living in a different culture a lot more. I'm not entirely sure that that is the case though. While I can't go so far as to say this experience has me wanting to be a teacher when I return home, I do feel like it's one of the best things I've ever done. I really love being in front of the classroom.
Sure, there are some classes that are a real pain. My first Matium 3 class (the same age as freshmen in high school) on Mondays is terrible. I leave the class very frustrated every week. It seems that no matter what kind of lesson I plan, they don't pay any attention and they just continually talk amongst themselves and do whatever they want. Sometimes it feels like I'm trying to teach a pack of monkeys. I think in the future I'm going to need to be far stricter with this class than with any others.
However, these annoying classes are certainly just a small minority. Most of the classes are just great. I've established a very good relationship with all of the Matium 6 classes already. Teachers are extremely well respected over here but I knew that it would be awkward to require these students, who are only a few years younger than me, to treat me the same way they treat the teachers who are in their 60's. While they certainly are respectful towards me and do as I say, I allow the class to be far more casual than most other teachers probably do. They know that they can relax a little bit in my class and we will have fun. I actually feel like this helps me get more accomplished with them than if I was extremely strict.
I've also established a pretty good relationship with most of my Matium 3 classes. Some, as I stated before, are not as good as others but most of them are outstanding. The one that really sticks out to me is M3/3. As I wrote in an earlier post, Matium 3 goes from 3/1-3/12. Supposedly, the lower the class number, the less intelligent they are. Obviously, this is not a system that would be totally accepted in the U.S., but it's the way they do things here. In turn, many of the teachers here would have you believe that the lower the class intelligence, the more poorly they behave. While this seems understandable, I find that there are certain aberrations; 3/3 is one of them. They are just a great class. They actually speak fairly good English and they really get into all of the lessons I plan. I find myself looking forward to 4th period on Thursday every week.
Overall, school has been great. Many of the teachers I work with are awesome. They love talking to us Westerners because they all love practicing their English (and most of them really need the practice). The students, for the most part, are great as well. I have yet to walk down a crowded hallway without hearing a few students say "hello teacher" or (out of a few of the wise asses) "yo teacher." Often times the students will bow to you as you walk by (this is called a "wai" in Thailand).
One of the things I found amazing is how many days off we are given. I've now been teaching for almost five weeks and have yet to have a full week of classes. Each week there is some event at school or some national holiday that requires an off day. I love teaching but I'm certainly not going to complain about a day off here or there.
One of these special events took place last week. The entire English department chaperoned Matium 5's visit to a Thai culture show. It was one of the coolest things I have done so far. The show was amazing. The stage was absolutely enormous. There were over 150 people in the cast. The best part was that there was no speaking. You didn't need to understand Thai to follow the show. After a brief introduction in Thai and then in English, they did not speak again. The first act of the performance showed the four main regions of traditional Thailand. The second act showed the three areas of the Buddhist afterlife. At one point a full, flowing river appeared on stage and stayed for the remainder of the performance. I thought it might be a little shallow pool until an actor actually dove in and then three boats went speeding down it. It was pretty incredible.
As I'm sure is clear, teaching has been pretty great. I really have enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. However, I have a lot of days off during the month of December so there will be plenty of new posts as I continue to visit new parts of the country over the next couple of weeks.
I've been asked by a few people about my address. I'm told the easiest way to get things here is by sending it to my school. That address would be:
Connor Hickey
English Department
Suksanareewitiya School
76/4 Moo 3.
Bangbon, Bangkok 10150
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Loy Krathong
This past weekend, Thailand celebrated the festival of Loy Krathong. It really is an amazing festival and I was thrilled to see it celebrated firsthand.
My excitement started early last week when the students and other teachers started telling me about the festival. Although the actual day of the festival was supposed to be Sunday, my school celebrated it Friday afternoon. I had many of my classes attempt to explain the meaning behind the celebration. Eventually, I learned a few things about the holiday. The focus of the day is the launching of "krathongs" into a body of water (anything from the main river in Bangkok to a bathtub is acceptable). A krathong is a piece of banana tree stump decorated with banana leaves, flowers, a candle, and three incense sticks.
The launching of the krathong is supposed to represent a number of things. The first is an apology to the river god for both polluting and using his water over the past year. The second is to ask for forgiveness for our wrong doings over the past year. Finally, it represents things you are asking the gods for over the coming year.
The other major event of the festival is the Noppamas Queen Beauty Contest. It is named after the Queen who is given credit with inventing the first krathong. For the contest, one girl from each class competed against the other girls her age. They were all dressed in traditional Thai clothing and had their hair and makeup set in the traditional way.
I couldn't help but imagine the outrage that would occur in the United States if a school set up a beauty contest between a bunch of 11 year old girls. Not only that, but each contestant (with one from each class and as many as 12 classes per grade, there were a lot of girls in this contest) was given a long introduction (in Thai of course) where their weight was included as part of the facts about them. It just goes to show how different many cultures around the world can be. While the beauty contest was going on, they also had a field day of sorts for the students (and teachers like me) that weren't so into the contest. I really enjoyed hanging out with many of my students in a more informal setting.
Me and the two other Americans I teach with, Becca and Jim, were treated like celebrities the entire day. We were asked to dress in traditional Thai outfits for the event. This was not too hard for Jim and I as we were only required to wear a flowery shirt (although mine looked like a cross between scrubs a nurse would wear and the shirts that the outside bartenders at Churchill's used to have to wear) but poor Becca had to spend all morning getting dressed by the Thai girls. The picture below shows Becca and I with a number of our bosses and coworkers. It also shows how much taller I am than the rest of this country.
After the beauty contest, we were asked to join the director of our school in a small parade over to where the krathongs were to be launched. The school doesn't have a nearby river so they simply flooded an area of the parking lot. I was skeptical of this at first but it actually turned out pretty cool. The first picture below shows the krathong that was made for me. The other pictures are of all of the krathongs (each class had one) floating on the man made lake.
After school, Becca and I headed out to meet some friends of ours in downtown Bangkok. We were lucky to stay in a great room overlooking Bangkok's largest river for the weekend. As I said, the festival was officially on Sunday but Friday and Saturday night both saw a lot of fireworks and river celebrations.
It was definitely a great weekend to be in Thailand. I really enjoy the chances I get to learn about Thai culture. I was thrilled that the holiday fell during my time over here. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. I'm very jealous that I can't be home to celebrate. Eat some turkey for me.
My excitement started early last week when the students and other teachers started telling me about the festival. Although the actual day of the festival was supposed to be Sunday, my school celebrated it Friday afternoon. I had many of my classes attempt to explain the meaning behind the celebration. Eventually, I learned a few things about the holiday. The focus of the day is the launching of "krathongs" into a body of water (anything from the main river in Bangkok to a bathtub is acceptable). A krathong is a piece of banana tree stump decorated with banana leaves, flowers, a candle, and three incense sticks.
The launching of the krathong is supposed to represent a number of things. The first is an apology to the river god for both polluting and using his water over the past year. The second is to ask for forgiveness for our wrong doings over the past year. Finally, it represents things you are asking the gods for over the coming year.
The other major event of the festival is the Noppamas Queen Beauty Contest. It is named after the Queen who is given credit with inventing the first krathong. For the contest, one girl from each class competed against the other girls her age. They were all dressed in traditional Thai clothing and had their hair and makeup set in the traditional way.
I couldn't help but imagine the outrage that would occur in the United States if a school set up a beauty contest between a bunch of 11 year old girls. Not only that, but each contestant (with one from each class and as many as 12 classes per grade, there were a lot of girls in this contest) was given a long introduction (in Thai of course) where their weight was included as part of the facts about them. It just goes to show how different many cultures around the world can be. While the beauty contest was going on, they also had a field day of sorts for the students (and teachers like me) that weren't so into the contest. I really enjoyed hanging out with many of my students in a more informal setting.
Me and the two other Americans I teach with, Becca and Jim, were treated like celebrities the entire day. We were asked to dress in traditional Thai outfits for the event. This was not too hard for Jim and I as we were only required to wear a flowery shirt (although mine looked like a cross between scrubs a nurse would wear and the shirts that the outside bartenders at Churchill's used to have to wear) but poor Becca had to spend all morning getting dressed by the Thai girls. The picture below shows Becca and I with a number of our bosses and coworkers. It also shows how much taller I am than the rest of this country.
After the beauty contest, we were asked to join the director of our school in a small parade over to where the krathongs were to be launched. The school doesn't have a nearby river so they simply flooded an area of the parking lot. I was skeptical of this at first but it actually turned out pretty cool. The first picture below shows the krathong that was made for me. The other pictures are of all of the krathongs (each class had one) floating on the man made lake.
After school, Becca and I headed out to meet some friends of ours in downtown Bangkok. We were lucky to stay in a great room overlooking Bangkok's largest river for the weekend. As I said, the festival was officially on Sunday but Friday and Saturday night both saw a lot of fireworks and river celebrations.
It was definitely a great weekend to be in Thailand. I really enjoy the chances I get to learn about Thai culture. I was thrilled that the holiday fell during my time over here. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. I'm very jealous that I can't be home to celebrate. Eat some turkey for me.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Koh Samet
Sorry for the long delay since my last post. It's been a busy couple of weeks over here between school, holidays, and traveling. Over the next few days I plan to upload a few different posts about what I've been up to over the past two weeks. First up, Koh Samet.
Koh Samet is the closest island to Bangkok. Located just three hours away by bus and a short ferry, its very easy to get to for a quick weekend at the beach. A few of us decided that last weekend would be the perfect weekend to visit the island we've heard so much about.
Many resources describe Koh Samet as an absolutely beautiful place but they also give a word of warning. Apparently, its close proximity to Bangkok causes it to be extremely crowded on the weekends, with both foreigners and local Thais. Because we all had to teach on Friday, I was worried that we might not be able to get a room for the weekend. Despite these fears, we headed to the island to see what would happen. I'm thrilled that we did.
My coworker Becca and I departed immediately from school on Friday and met two friends of ours at the train station in the center of Bangkok. It was surprisingly easy, and cheap, to get a bus down to Bang Phe (where we would catch a ferry to Koh Samet). The bus actually turned out to be really nice. They gave us bottled water and snacks during the ride. We arrived in Bang Phe knowing that we were too late to catch the last ferry to Koh Samet, so we met more of our friends at a hotel right next to the pier with plans to catch the first ferry to the island Saturday morning. The hotel was run by an Australian and, although it was far from the nicest place I have ever stayed, I liked it because I had the opportunity to eat the most delicious cheeseburger I've had since I've been in Thailand. This is not really a great accomplishment, I guess, because it only beat out one other cheeseburger for that award. Nonetheless, I enjoyed having a meal without rice for a change.
We woke up around 7:00 am Saturday morning and headed over to the pier to catch a ferry. Again, this was unbelievably easy. I've found that many of the people on the islands speak far better English than people around where I teach. This makes traveling a bit less hectic. The ferry got us to the island around 8:00 am and we headed off in search of a hotel. Two friends I was traveling with had been to Koh Samet a few weeks before this and they said there was a hotel that they had seen and would like to try. The rest of us were all rookies on the island so we followed their lead. They made a great choice. We got a little cottage with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. It was a total of 1,400 baht (45 dollars) between six people. We were surrounded by other travelers our age and we were only a five minute walk from the beach. It really turned out to be a great place to stay.
We spent all day Saturday relaxing on the beach. It was a beautiful place. Perfectly clear, warm water. White sand that looked like flour. It was everything the guidebooks said it would be.
And despite the warnings, the island certainly didn't feel overly crowded. That afternoon, a few of us decided to go on a boat cruise/snorkeling tour of the island.
It was a lot of fun. The snorkeling wasn't the best that I think I'll experience while over here but the ride around the island, seeing all of the different beaches and cliffs, was really cool.
That night was one of the most fun I've had in Thailand. We got dinner at a restaurant on the beach and were pleasantly surprised when fire dancers started performing. They can do amazing things with the fire.
They performed for at least forty-five minutes. It was really awesome to see. After that, my buddy Lee and I headed over to the Mauy Thai boxing ring set up across the street from our hotel. We had a lot of fun betting each other which fighter would win each fight. Following that, we decided to test out the pizza place down the road. It may have been the fact that at that point in our night we were hungry for anything, but it was outstanding.
The next day, sadly, we had to leave. It was a quick trip but definitely worth it. On our way home, the bus "broke down." We found out later that it had in fact run out of gas. We should have been tipped off when the driver started driving forty miles an hour and turning off the AC intermittently. Only in Thailand would the guy decide not to stop until he could actually go no further.
Despite that small fiasco, the trip was an amazing success. As I already said, there will be a few posts coming up in the next few days concerning teaching updates and Thai holidays. Hope everyone is enjoying reading them.
Koh Samet is the closest island to Bangkok. Located just three hours away by bus and a short ferry, its very easy to get to for a quick weekend at the beach. A few of us decided that last weekend would be the perfect weekend to visit the island we've heard so much about.
Many resources describe Koh Samet as an absolutely beautiful place but they also give a word of warning. Apparently, its close proximity to Bangkok causes it to be extremely crowded on the weekends, with both foreigners and local Thais. Because we all had to teach on Friday, I was worried that we might not be able to get a room for the weekend. Despite these fears, we headed to the island to see what would happen. I'm thrilled that we did.
My coworker Becca and I departed immediately from school on Friday and met two friends of ours at the train station in the center of Bangkok. It was surprisingly easy, and cheap, to get a bus down to Bang Phe (where we would catch a ferry to Koh Samet). The bus actually turned out to be really nice. They gave us bottled water and snacks during the ride. We arrived in Bang Phe knowing that we were too late to catch the last ferry to Koh Samet, so we met more of our friends at a hotel right next to the pier with plans to catch the first ferry to the island Saturday morning. The hotel was run by an Australian and, although it was far from the nicest place I have ever stayed, I liked it because I had the opportunity to eat the most delicious cheeseburger I've had since I've been in Thailand. This is not really a great accomplishment, I guess, because it only beat out one other cheeseburger for that award. Nonetheless, I enjoyed having a meal without rice for a change.
We woke up around 7:00 am Saturday morning and headed over to the pier to catch a ferry. Again, this was unbelievably easy. I've found that many of the people on the islands speak far better English than people around where I teach. This makes traveling a bit less hectic. The ferry got us to the island around 8:00 am and we headed off in search of a hotel. Two friends I was traveling with had been to Koh Samet a few weeks before this and they said there was a hotel that they had seen and would like to try. The rest of us were all rookies on the island so we followed their lead. They made a great choice. We got a little cottage with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. It was a total of 1,400 baht (45 dollars) between six people. We were surrounded by other travelers our age and we were only a five minute walk from the beach. It really turned out to be a great place to stay.
We spent all day Saturday relaxing on the beach. It was a beautiful place. Perfectly clear, warm water. White sand that looked like flour. It was everything the guidebooks said it would be.
And despite the warnings, the island certainly didn't feel overly crowded. That afternoon, a few of us decided to go on a boat cruise/snorkeling tour of the island.
It was a lot of fun. The snorkeling wasn't the best that I think I'll experience while over here but the ride around the island, seeing all of the different beaches and cliffs, was really cool.
That night was one of the most fun I've had in Thailand. We got dinner at a restaurant on the beach and were pleasantly surprised when fire dancers started performing. They can do amazing things with the fire.
They performed for at least forty-five minutes. It was really awesome to see. After that, my buddy Lee and I headed over to the Mauy Thai boxing ring set up across the street from our hotel. We had a lot of fun betting each other which fighter would win each fight. Following that, we decided to test out the pizza place down the road. It may have been the fact that at that point in our night we were hungry for anything, but it was outstanding.
The next day, sadly, we had to leave. It was a quick trip but definitely worth it. On our way home, the bus "broke down." We found out later that it had in fact run out of gas. We should have been tipped off when the driver started driving forty miles an hour and turning off the AC intermittently. Only in Thailand would the guy decide not to stop until he could actually go no further.
Despite that small fiasco, the trip was an amazing success. As I already said, there will be a few posts coming up in the next few days concerning teaching updates and Thai holidays. Hope everyone is enjoying reading them.
Monday, November 8, 2010
First Week Teaching
Last week the semester finally began at my school, Suksanareewittiya School. As I prepared my lesson plans for the week I tried to keep in mind all that we had been taught during orientation. It was actually very hard to plan for the week because there were so many variables. The laid back attitude of most Thais led them to tell us very little information about our classes. As I've already posted, I knew I would be teaching M3 (the equivalent of American freshmen) and M6 (seniors) but that was pretty much it. I had no curriculum, no schedule, and nothing really to indicate what I should prepare for. I was just told to be in the office by 8:00 am on Monday.
Rather than teach them any particular vocabulary or grammar on the first day, I decided to keep my lesson to strictly an introduction of me and some activities to get them talking. Because I had no indication as to their proficiency with English, I prepared the same lesson for M3 and M6. I knew I would be able to add or subtract to the lesson both in terms of quantity and difficulty once I got an idea about each particular class.
So with my lesson plan ready and my clothes freshly ironed I set off to school. It's conveniently located directly across the street from my apartment so the commute is pretty outstanding. I arrived at my desk and was immediately handed my weekly schedule. Seemed to me to be a good start. I was then told that the first two periods were canceled because the students had an assembly. Looking at my schedule, I noticed that, because the first two periods were cancelled, my first class of the day wasn't until 6th period. This gave me time to relax but also allowed me to become increasingly nervous. It didn't help that every teacher in the English department, upon learning that my first class would be M6/7 responded with an, "uh oh good luck." Apparently, M6/7 is one of the worst classes in the school. I was perplexed when looking at my schedule and seeing various numbers like the 6/7 above. It turns out that classes are grouped based on academic ability. So for M3 it goes from M3/1 to M3/12. For M6 it goes from M6/1 to M6/8. I later learned that for M3, the higher the class number, the higher the class's academic ability. This confused me because I knew that M6/7 was a very bad class. I was told that M6/7 and M6/8 (all athletes) are the worst classes in the M6 grade. Assuming that it must work the opposite of M3 then, I asked if my M6/1 students were going to be my best M6 students. I was told no, my M6/5 class is my best class. So basically, there seems to be little rhyme or reason to the class number. It is going to be one of the things I need to learn to deal with as the semester progresses. The bottom line is that, like most teachers, there are going to be some classes I love and there are going to be some classes I don't really look forward to.
The other thing I learned on Monday morning was that I am actually working closely with a number of other teachers and basically taking their class once a week. So I see each class one time per week. They take an English class every day but their "core teacher" teaches them the other four days of the week. It is my job to focus on their pronunciation and speaking ability rather than their grammar and writing abilities. Over the course of the week I met the other teachers in the office and also the five teachers (three for M3 and two for M6) whose classes I will be teaching once per week. The thing that really shocked me was how poor many of these teachers are with English. They know the ins and outs of the grammar side of things better than most Americans do, but their speaking ability is unbelievably bad. It makes sense why they would want to give the students exposure to native English speakers at least once a week. However, that being said, seeing so many students is a bit overwhelming. There are 50 students in a class and I teach 20 classes each week so I see a total of 1,000 students each week. Learning all of their names will be quite an achievement.
Armed with a basic understanding of how (I think) the system works, I was ready for my first class. Many of the core teachers accompany us to our classes this week in an effort to keep the students from walking all over the new teachers. The core teacher for my first class, along with three other M6 classes, is P'Noi. She is very nice but I think I'm going to be more comfortable next week when I have the class to myself. She spent the entire period translating everything I said into Thai. Obviously, this is extremely counterproductive when trying to get them to learn English. Other than that, the class went as well as I could have expected my first class to go. The students were certainly as rowdy as I was warned they would be but my voice is loud enough that I was able to maintain control for the majority of the class. Interestingly, this seems to be a problem for many Thai teachers. They often use microphones to project their voice so that the whole class can hear. I was offered my own microphone and speaker the first day but I declined. I would not have enjoyed the restriction of having to stand at the front of the room the whole time with the thing in my hand. I prefer to walk around the classroom throughout my lesson.
After this class I had my first M3 class, M3/5. My core teacher for this class is actually a young teacher named Por who I've become friendly with over the past two weeks and she was very helpful. She didn't translate anything until the students really couldn't understand something I was trying to explain. Only then would she give them a hint in Thai to help them figure it out. Por is certainly one of the better core teachers I work with. Two of them actually don't even show up to class. I prefer this because I like having my own control over the class and I feel like the students respect you more if they know that you can control the class without the help of a Thai teacher. The final core teacher was definitely less than helpful. She actually corrected, to the whole class, a mistake that I had missed in something that a student had written on the board. Later she came running in and announced that class was over. I waited until she left and then kept the students five minutes late because I was so annoyed. Hopefully, it was just the first week and she will back off in the future.
Overall, the first week went great. As nervous as I was Monday morning, I was actually extremely excited for each class by the end of the week. I really enjoy being in front of the room and teaching these kids about my native language. There were certainly some challenging classes. The lower M3 class are really hard to communicate with and many of them just misbehave the entire class. I keep reminding myself to have patience with these classes because I really feel like the system has screwed them. They are put in these classes and its painfully obvious that many teachers don't give them half the effort that they give to the higher ranked classes. How are they supposed to move up if the teachers don't give them the necessary tools to do so? The other thing I realized when they misbehave is that I was enough of a smart ass in high school to know how to deal with the smart asses in the back of the room. I actually like those types of students sometimes because it beats the alternative of having a whole class look at you and not respond to anything you are saying. I usually just make the bad kids who sit in the back be the first ones to answer a question or read in front of the class.
On the other side of the spectrum, there are some really outstanding classes. Many of the more proficient M6 classes are very good at English. They are all 18 and 19 years old so I approach these classes a little bit more casually than I would otherwise. Some of these classes are certainly going to develop into more laid back, conversation oriented lessons. The better M3 classes are equally amazing. There have been a number of them that I walked out of in a great mood because the students were so good and they clearly just got the lesson. One class in particular stands out. I had M3/11 last Friday. They are a really smart class and I knew that they would be great with all the material I was going over. Like I said before, the lesson plan was just basic introductory things. One of the questions was "What is your favorite sport?" I had one of them write it on the board and then I had them repeat it after me in unison. As many people know, the letter "r" is traditionally a challenge for Asian speakers. In addition to this, they often confuse "v" with "w." This class, for some reason, had particular trouble with the word "favorite." As a result, I had a bunch of 14 year old Thais pronouncing "favorite" as "faw-o-lit." For the life of me I could not get them to say it the right way. As hard as I tried, they just couldn't do it. After many attempts, the entire room was just laughing, as was I, because they all knew that they just couldn't say it the right way. M3/11 is certainly a class I am going to be looking forward to this coming week.
Speaking of this week, we have off until Thursday. Apparently, all of the Thai teachers must take the kids camping. I don't know how this works with 3,000 kids but it should be interesting. So now I've worked five days and I get three off. I think I could get used to this Thai system.
I think I will be traveling this weekend to one of the islands in the Gulf of Thailand. Should be a pretty great trip. I've got a tough life over here, three days off and then a trip to the beach. Expect a post sometime next week about how it went.
Rather than teach them any particular vocabulary or grammar on the first day, I decided to keep my lesson to strictly an introduction of me and some activities to get them talking. Because I had no indication as to their proficiency with English, I prepared the same lesson for M3 and M6. I knew I would be able to add or subtract to the lesson both in terms of quantity and difficulty once I got an idea about each particular class.
So with my lesson plan ready and my clothes freshly ironed I set off to school. It's conveniently located directly across the street from my apartment so the commute is pretty outstanding. I arrived at my desk and was immediately handed my weekly schedule. Seemed to me to be a good start. I was then told that the first two periods were canceled because the students had an assembly. Looking at my schedule, I noticed that, because the first two periods were cancelled, my first class of the day wasn't until 6th period. This gave me time to relax but also allowed me to become increasingly nervous. It didn't help that every teacher in the English department, upon learning that my first class would be M6/7 responded with an, "uh oh good luck." Apparently, M6/7 is one of the worst classes in the school. I was perplexed when looking at my schedule and seeing various numbers like the 6/7 above. It turns out that classes are grouped based on academic ability. So for M3 it goes from M3/1 to M3/12. For M6 it goes from M6/1 to M6/8. I later learned that for M3, the higher the class number, the higher the class's academic ability. This confused me because I knew that M6/7 was a very bad class. I was told that M6/7 and M6/8 (all athletes) are the worst classes in the M6 grade. Assuming that it must work the opposite of M3 then, I asked if my M6/1 students were going to be my best M6 students. I was told no, my M6/5 class is my best class. So basically, there seems to be little rhyme or reason to the class number. It is going to be one of the things I need to learn to deal with as the semester progresses. The bottom line is that, like most teachers, there are going to be some classes I love and there are going to be some classes I don't really look forward to.
The other thing I learned on Monday morning was that I am actually working closely with a number of other teachers and basically taking their class once a week. So I see each class one time per week. They take an English class every day but their "core teacher" teaches them the other four days of the week. It is my job to focus on their pronunciation and speaking ability rather than their grammar and writing abilities. Over the course of the week I met the other teachers in the office and also the five teachers (three for M3 and two for M6) whose classes I will be teaching once per week. The thing that really shocked me was how poor many of these teachers are with English. They know the ins and outs of the grammar side of things better than most Americans do, but their speaking ability is unbelievably bad. It makes sense why they would want to give the students exposure to native English speakers at least once a week. However, that being said, seeing so many students is a bit overwhelming. There are 50 students in a class and I teach 20 classes each week so I see a total of 1,000 students each week. Learning all of their names will be quite an achievement.
Armed with a basic understanding of how (I think) the system works, I was ready for my first class. Many of the core teachers accompany us to our classes this week in an effort to keep the students from walking all over the new teachers. The core teacher for my first class, along with three other M6 classes, is P'Noi. She is very nice but I think I'm going to be more comfortable next week when I have the class to myself. She spent the entire period translating everything I said into Thai. Obviously, this is extremely counterproductive when trying to get them to learn English. Other than that, the class went as well as I could have expected my first class to go. The students were certainly as rowdy as I was warned they would be but my voice is loud enough that I was able to maintain control for the majority of the class. Interestingly, this seems to be a problem for many Thai teachers. They often use microphones to project their voice so that the whole class can hear. I was offered my own microphone and speaker the first day but I declined. I would not have enjoyed the restriction of having to stand at the front of the room the whole time with the thing in my hand. I prefer to walk around the classroom throughout my lesson.
After this class I had my first M3 class, M3/5. My core teacher for this class is actually a young teacher named Por who I've become friendly with over the past two weeks and she was very helpful. She didn't translate anything until the students really couldn't understand something I was trying to explain. Only then would she give them a hint in Thai to help them figure it out. Por is certainly one of the better core teachers I work with. Two of them actually don't even show up to class. I prefer this because I like having my own control over the class and I feel like the students respect you more if they know that you can control the class without the help of a Thai teacher. The final core teacher was definitely less than helpful. She actually corrected, to the whole class, a mistake that I had missed in something that a student had written on the board. Later she came running in and announced that class was over. I waited until she left and then kept the students five minutes late because I was so annoyed. Hopefully, it was just the first week and she will back off in the future.
Overall, the first week went great. As nervous as I was Monday morning, I was actually extremely excited for each class by the end of the week. I really enjoy being in front of the room and teaching these kids about my native language. There were certainly some challenging classes. The lower M3 class are really hard to communicate with and many of them just misbehave the entire class. I keep reminding myself to have patience with these classes because I really feel like the system has screwed them. They are put in these classes and its painfully obvious that many teachers don't give them half the effort that they give to the higher ranked classes. How are they supposed to move up if the teachers don't give them the necessary tools to do so? The other thing I realized when they misbehave is that I was enough of a smart ass in high school to know how to deal with the smart asses in the back of the room. I actually like those types of students sometimes because it beats the alternative of having a whole class look at you and not respond to anything you are saying. I usually just make the bad kids who sit in the back be the first ones to answer a question or read in front of the class.
On the other side of the spectrum, there are some really outstanding classes. Many of the more proficient M6 classes are very good at English. They are all 18 and 19 years old so I approach these classes a little bit more casually than I would otherwise. Some of these classes are certainly going to develop into more laid back, conversation oriented lessons. The better M3 classes are equally amazing. There have been a number of them that I walked out of in a great mood because the students were so good and they clearly just got the lesson. One class in particular stands out. I had M3/11 last Friday. They are a really smart class and I knew that they would be great with all the material I was going over. Like I said before, the lesson plan was just basic introductory things. One of the questions was "What is your favorite sport?" I had one of them write it on the board and then I had them repeat it after me in unison. As many people know, the letter "r" is traditionally a challenge for Asian speakers. In addition to this, they often confuse "v" with "w." This class, for some reason, had particular trouble with the word "favorite." As a result, I had a bunch of 14 year old Thais pronouncing "favorite" as "faw-o-lit." For the life of me I could not get them to say it the right way. As hard as I tried, they just couldn't do it. After many attempts, the entire room was just laughing, as was I, because they all knew that they just couldn't say it the right way. M3/11 is certainly a class I am going to be looking forward to this coming week.
Speaking of this week, we have off until Thursday. Apparently, all of the Thai teachers must take the kids camping. I don't know how this works with 3,000 kids but it should be interesting. So now I've worked five days and I get three off. I think I could get used to this Thai system.
I think I will be traveling this weekend to one of the islands in the Gulf of Thailand. Should be a pretty great trip. I've got a tough life over here, three days off and then a trip to the beach. Expect a post sometime next week about how it went.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Halloween Penthouses
Last weekend was surely one to remember. My friend Chris called me on Wednesday to tell me that he had managed to get a bunch of us a penthouse suite overlooking the river in downtown Bangkok. We had planned on going out downtown for the weekend anyway but the prospect staying in a beautiful apartment made it even more exciting. It turns out that Chris has close family connections to two very prominent Thai doctors. One of them, in fact, performed hand surgery for the Queen of Thailand a few years back. They had a spare apartment and insisted that we stay in it for the weekend.
Six of us arrived on Friday and had dinner with Chris's family friends. It was a delicious meal, the plates just kept coming. We were then taken over to the apartment. It was amazing. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two large family rooms and two balconies on different sides of the building each with an outstanding view of the entire city.
Friday night we enjoyed ourselves at the apartment. It was a welcome change for all of us after being in some pretty shabby surroundings for the past month.
Saturday was one of the more fun days I've had since my arrival in Thailand. We were invited to a retirement party for the Queen's hand surgeon. It was very cool to be a part of a celebration in a different culture. Again, plate after plate of food was brought out to the tables until we just couldn't eat anymore. Then the karaoke started. It is a Thai tradition that whoever sings one song picks the person who will get up and sing the next song. Inevitably, we were chosen so the six of us together sang "Hey Jude." It is another tradition that the other people at the party present flowers to the singers based on how well they do. We each got three flowers. I guess it's better than getting booed off stage.
That night some of our friends from orientation came over to the apartment. We all hung out there for awhile then headed to Koh San Road. Koh San Road is known as the "backpackers' district." It is notorious for its nightlife. It certainly lived up to the hype. They had giant stages set up in the middle of the street in celebration of Halloween and people were walking around in crazy costumes. We met up with some more people from orientation, altogether there were about 20 of us, and we all had a blast.
The weekend was better than I ever could have imagined it would be. Our hosts made us promise that we would come back and stay at the apartment soon. I think that probably won't be a problem at all.
Six of us arrived on Friday and had dinner with Chris's family friends. It was a delicious meal, the plates just kept coming. We were then taken over to the apartment. It was amazing. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two large family rooms and two balconies on different sides of the building each with an outstanding view of the entire city.
Friday night we enjoyed ourselves at the apartment. It was a welcome change for all of us after being in some pretty shabby surroundings for the past month.
Saturday was one of the more fun days I've had since my arrival in Thailand. We were invited to a retirement party for the Queen's hand surgeon. It was very cool to be a part of a celebration in a different culture. Again, plate after plate of food was brought out to the tables until we just couldn't eat anymore. Then the karaoke started. It is a Thai tradition that whoever sings one song picks the person who will get up and sing the next song. Inevitably, we were chosen so the six of us together sang "Hey Jude." It is another tradition that the other people at the party present flowers to the singers based on how well they do. We each got three flowers. I guess it's better than getting booed off stage.
That night some of our friends from orientation came over to the apartment. We all hung out there for awhile then headed to Koh San Road. Koh San Road is known as the "backpackers' district." It is notorious for its nightlife. It certainly lived up to the hype. They had giant stages set up in the middle of the street in celebration of Halloween and people were walking around in crazy costumes. We met up with some more people from orientation, altogether there were about 20 of us, and we all had a blast.
The weekend was better than I ever could have imagined it would be. Our hosts made us promise that we would come back and stay at the apartment soon. I think that probably won't be a problem at all.
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