Teaching in thailand

I have now been teaching here in Li for 3 weeks and with that wealth of experience behind me i will try and give a taste of what i have found teaching to be like over here. To recap I am teaching English, Math and Science. The English is only for 5 hours a week and that is to Matayom 4 (fourth year of secondary school) and the other 9 hours is spent equally between Math and Science to Matayom 1 (first years). The M1 kids have as good if not better English than some of the M4 kids but i suppose they need to be good to get into the MEP. No point being there if you dont understand english! I guess im pretty lucky in that most of my students understand most of what i say some of the time.

Let's start with the English as that was the main thing that brought me over here. I thought that was all i would be teaching but in fact its more the other way around. M4 is broken up into different levels based on their academic ability. I have the top 4 classes, the very best one i have twice a week and the other 3 only once. Its very hard to get any kind of link between classes when you only have them once a week and even that isnt assured thanks to all the random days off or half days or what have you. I do have a basic outline of what im to teach M4 but after that its up to me. I began my first class by introducing myself and where i am from. They havent a clue where ireland is so this took longer than expected as i attempted to draw a map of europe on the board. I followed this up with a few sentences on the board with blanks in them such as "My favourite football team is....." and "In my free time i like to......" This gave me a chance to gauge their level of english and i finished with a game of Hangman (thai kids love hangman). I used this in each M4 class so that was the first week taken care of there! Basically what i found out is there a few enthusiastic kids and a lot of very quiet kids. Once i went in with a lesson plan and some whiteboard markers i felt ok and once i got into a flow i was fine (your lesson plan is your armour and your markers are your weapons!). If i go into class unprepared it all turns to mush so to have any hope of getting anything done i need a small bit of structure. Anyway i found English ok for the first few classes as i got my bearings and got a feel for each class to see what i could teach them and what was too easy/hard. They get a bit rowdier once they get used to you but i can still keep them under a bit of control by raising my voice calmly by increments. I havent yet gotten to full volume i dont think so thats a positive. It is very challenging to teach these kids (especially on a topic like the environment) when they have very little english. I need to have some kind of game or activity to hold their attention or they get bored and even then its hard to keep coming up with games all the time. The biggest problem i face is laziness because thai students cannot fail. I mean there is no mechanism in the thai education system for a kid to fail, there is only a low pass upwards. Therefore why should they try? I mean they will pass anyway so there is no incentive to work. This is just in class so homework is a complete waste of time. This is incredibly frustrating but its something i have to deal with.

Math and Science are different. For a start i have a book for each (the kids also have this book) and i have a fairly straightforward curriculum. This makes lesson planning a sight easier as i just follow the book and put my own twist on it. Also the kids know the stuff already having done it through thai and i am just giving them the english version. These classes are easy enough though i have the same thing with the games and activities. Essentially thai teachers lecture and the kids just memorise everything without understanding it. Im supposed to be the opposite and get them to understanding stuff rather than memorising it. I also have co-teachers for Math and Science, Goy for Math and Noon for Science (these are there nicknames as there regular names are tricky to pronounce). They are a big help both in preparing lessons and in controlling the class. They are Thai Math and Science teachers with good English and guide me as to what the kids can manage and what is difficult for them. Obviously the kids would never tell me this themselves as they are too shy. So i have a translator there if the kids are having particular trouble, often there is a thai translation at the end of each lesson. Between us we try and get the kids to learn something. I spend most of the class trying to explain things and trying to engage the kids in the material which i eventually get through sheer persistence (sometimes). Most of the time they look at me, then at the co-teacher for help and eventually the message gets across!

So for someone who hadnt taught a day in their life im probably not doing too bad, i think. Some days are better than others which is a combination of the material and my approach maybe working. If things dont work in one class then i just take a different approach in the next class. All in all its a pretty cushy number though. I have 14 hours of class a week and even then if you add a generous 1 hour prep for each class on top of that im still under 30 hours a week. I have to be in work from 8 till 4 every day so that adds up to a lot of free time!

Im sure i'll expand on this in a later entry but i wanted to give an insight into what it is like to teach over here from my perspective. Its not all pretty waterfalls and drinking but is still fun, or in thai: Sanook Sanook!