Now that I told you about the exciting excursion we had as a group and about our awful living conditions, I will go back to our final days of orientation…….
Friday afternoon, after the Grand Palace and lunch, we got back to the hotel and had a few hours of teacher training and some time to rest before we met our school coordinators. Katie and I were a little nervous, but as soon as we met Toon we were relieved; she seems very nice. She came off very friendly and welcoming. She answered a lot of our questions we had about how our Teach in Thailand experience was going to fold out. She told us we would each be teaching a section of middle school and a section of high school. In Thailand, they refer to middle school grades as Mat-tha-yom 1, 2, and 3 and high school grades as Mat-tha-yom 4, 5 and 6. Our main objective throughout the semester is to focus on pronunciation and communication with our students. We don’t have a book that we are required to use to teach, but Toon told us we can just somehow relate what we teach to what our co-teachers are teaching. It was somewhat disappointing because she said straight up they don’t have high expectations for us as teachers. I, on the other hand, really want the students to take away something from me teaching them English. I think I really need to be strict teaching right away. Lay down some ground rules for the classroom, and set up consequences, such as taking away their cell phone if it’s that big of a distraction. Toon said we were definitely allowed to do so, as long as we give the cell phone to our co-teacher. I know that may seem harsh, but I was told that cell phones are a big problem in the secondary level schools. Megan, a friend of a teacher in our group who has been teaching in Thailand already for a few months, came up with having the students come see her for 5 or 10 minutes of their lunch break if they are misbehaving badly in class. This may be a good idea. We cannot have them stay after school because they all ride buses home that leave immediately from school it sounds like.
Does anyone else have any other ideas as far as discipline/consequences go? Any ideas/suggestions are welcome!
After talking with our coordinator, there was a Traditional Thai Welcome Ceremony along with a buffet dinner. The dinner was pretty good. Not one of the best meals we’ve had, but they had yummy desserts. My coordinator brought Katie and I what to me looked like chop sticks. I was taught that Thais eat their noodles with chopsticks, so for my spaghetti I grabbed the packaging of “chop sticks” to find out it actually was a straw. Before I realized this, I said “ok, so we eat the noodles with these chop sticks right?” I felt pretty stupid, Toon was laughing at me…..I was a little embarrassed but it was fine, I just laughed it off with her. As part of the Welcome Ceremony there were two Thai girls all dressed up and did some type of dance to Thai musicians. It was pretty cool.
Saturday, we were able to sleep in a little bit. We had our teacher training and a Thai Educational System and Standards class. English learning for Mat-tha-yom 1 – 3, grades 7th through 9th, is intermediate grammar and the four language skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. English learning for Mat-tha-yom 4 – 6, grades 10th through 12th, is test preparation for the National Education Exam. One helpful technique for classroom management is the strategic use of praise and rewards. The Thai phrase, Kreng Jai means being aware of other people’s feelings and showing politeness. This is also a helpful classroom management technique I will try to use. Following the idea of kreng jai comes the Thai word Sa Nook, to have fun. Thai culture involves a lot of sa nook in their classrooms as well as in the business setting. Another topic the lecturer covered was the culture shock about sexuality in Thailand. It is unacceptable in the Thai culture for a man and a woman to show any form of PDA; however it is perfectly normal for two men or two women to show affection towards one another even if they are heterosexual. This concept is quite different than in the United States.
No comments:
Post a Comment