Um, students? I go now.
So, teaching…
I am just beginning the second week, and it is quite an experience! My work environment is great, I certainly lucked out in that regard. My direct boss is Aron, a guy from New Orleans who has been in Thailand for 11 years, five of which were spent living in the same building that I am living in and all of which were spent teaching at Wimol Business Administration College, which is my school. He speaks fluent Thai, has a Thai wife and, needless to say, knows all the ins and outs of Bangkok, my neighborhood, and anything else you can imagine. He is a wealth of information and is helping us out a ton!
My coworkers include Joe, who is one of the guys that I trained with in Phuket, Norelle, a 60 year old Australian lady who taught here two years ago and is back for more, and Aris, a guy from Manila who has been teaching English at Wimol for five years now. The five of us make up the foreign language department and have our own wing in the school – everyone absolutely adores Aron, which put us in a good starting position.
I teach 23 periods a week, each of which is 50 minutes long. A good portion of them are back-to-back periods, making them 100 minutes…we see every class 3-5 periods per week. Although our school is called a “college,” it is not a college in the American sense. These kids have all finished our equivalent of high school, at which point they choose to either go to vocational college, then to University for two years, or straight to University for four years. Most of my students are between 15-20 years old, though they mature much more slowly than I’m used to; a 20 year old in Thailand seems like a 16 year old westerner.
As you can probably imagine, teaching roomfuls of 20 (ie 16) year olds is a bit of a challenge, and definitely exhausting! They are very similar to the students that we had in teaching practice – super short attention spans, more talkative than you can possibly imagine, and really just interested in being entertained. Luckily I don’t have any classes over 25 students, and a have a few that only have 6-12. Again, there are no serious problems like you might find in the states, the biggest issue is just that Thais are very social and kids that age regard English class as social hour. They really are only there because they have to be, and really don’t take it too seriously.
Most of my classes are actually fun, and the quicker I learn how to not take it seriously either, the more enjoyable it is. There are some really intelligent, motivated students in each class, especially in my business grammar class. That group consists of 6 girls, all about 21-22 years old, all with great English, fluent Japanese, and career motivation. They are such a breath of fresh air (even though I’m terrified to teach that class – I do not know even basic grammar rules!) as you can actually have a conversation with them and get to know them beyond “My name is __________ and I like _________.” However, make up for it, I have a group on Mondays and Tuesdays of absolute hellions! Joe and I split a group of 50, and we were forewarned by Aron…these kids are all about 15, do not EVER shut up, could care less if you’re talking and bring in about three cell phones for every one kid.
They were tolerable last week, but today was a serious behavioral decline for both Joe and I. We’ve decided that Monday is officially “buy a big beer at 7-11 for the walk home” day and are brainstorming ways to at least get these kids to “not care” in silence.
It is so strange though, because they can still be so respectful! When they walk in classroom it’s “Good morning teacher!” and the second that it’s over they all come up to you and say “Thank you teacher, I will see you later!” with big smiles. They clean up all of the trash, take the dictionaries back to my office, erase the board. They want to talk to you in the hallway, eat lunch with you, everything…they just won’t listen to your lesson!
The most bizarre thing is that most of them just do NOT understand creativity. The Thai school system is a lecture and discipline-based system, and they are conditioned to look for very black-and-white answers to everything. If you have them write a dialogue between two friends at a party, they immediately want to know what should go first, what should the answer be? If you tell them to write about what they did over the weekend, you’ll get 80% identical responses – the one that someone had you check and say “good job!” to at the beginning. It’s been described to me more than a few times that most Thai students are great “parrots” and not much more – I can certainly see that after just a week.
I was told to embellish my age in order to get more respect, so as far as any of my students know, I am 28. I guess this would be true at home – if I’d had a 23 year old teacher when I was 19 or 20, I wouldn’t have given them the time of day! The absolute best students are the ladyboys and the gay boys…they all speak great English, are extremely enthusiastic, funny and also very popular. All of the other students, boys and girls, will follow their lead and the class is so much more productive (and entertaining!).
No one ever comes on time – that is a Thai trait – and honestly, I love it! It turns every 50 minute class into a 40 minute class… Another thing that I absolutely love is the cafeteria! There are two at Wimol, each of which is a huge row of food stalls, everything from stirfries to curries to Thai bbq to sushi to Japanese noodles to icecream, and more! It all cost 15-20 baht (50-80 cents) and is delicious – if I’d had a place like that in high school, there’s no way I ever would have hoarded my lunch money (don’t tell my parents!). It’s open the entire day, from somewhere around 7 am til at least 5:00…any time you want to eat, go eat. The students certainly take advantage of it, and I do the same!
There are also lots of classes cancelled, for completely random reasons (ie “clapping practice”), quite often. I’ll get to enjoy that beginning on Wednesday, when everyone will be skipping class to make flower bouquets, which will be presented (along with a kneeling-at-the-feet) to all of the teachers (in lieu of class) on Thursday, Teacher Appreciation Day. Then next week is “camp,” which foreign teachers really have nothing to do with, yet are required to go. So next Wednesday morning we will load up in buses with the kids, go two hours away to the jungle and “enjoy” two days of crafts, singing, games, etc – luckily we’re getting a separate place to stay (at our own expense, and well worth it!) and plenty of time to enjoy NOT being in Bangkok. There go two more class days!
If all of this keeps up, four months will be a breeze! Last week I was definitely doubting my ability to stick this out, as the temptation to call it quits and just go travel is strong, and will only be intensified once Gabe is here in a few weeks. Today already felt easier though, and I think that each day will make lessons easier to plan, classes less stressful to face, and I will just take it less seriously overall, which seems to be the key. Besides, backing out means that I lose both my free accommodation AND my visa, two very important things. I’m sure that the first payday will increase my motivation as well!
I’m working on getting more photos up – I’ve got a ton on my camera from this past weekend, which I spent in Ayutthaya visiting a friend from our training group. Ayutthaya is the old capital of Thailand (a two hour, 15 baht train ride away) and is chock full of ruins (due to Burmese invasions), temples and GREENERY! It was a beautiful place and I can’t wait to go explore more! We met a bar owner who took us over to the elephant conservatory – it’s basically a big ranch for rescued elephants and their babies. It’s completely donation-funded, so they run an elephant-stay program where people pay to stay for any number of days. This covers your room and all food, along with an elephant. This elephant is “yours” for the time that you stay, a period during which you are responsible for riding it into the lake in the morning/evening for bath time, feeding it, playing with it, etc. I will absolutely be back to do that once Gabe gets here and cannot wait – it’s such a neat thing to support, the babies are incredibly cute and puppy-like, and come on…you get your own elephant!
I’ve been slacking when it comes to taking photos of my neighborhood and school, but it’s on the agenda for the next day or so – I’ll post here when they’re up!
Tags: Travel
allisonrae
September 12th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
The students don’t sound too different from the high school classes we took, but that elephant stay program sounds awesome. That sounds like it would be the most amazing thing….EVER!!
August 7th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Great blog very well written and informative.
November 24th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Fantastic. I’ve been on a big noodle high lately, I have no idea why – I just got totally addicted to noodles!! I’ve already tried nearly half of all the noodle recipe here ! Crazy huh. I should probably stop soon, I dont think eating noodles every day is a little unhealthy perhaps…
August 7th, 2011 at 6:32 pm
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November 16th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
How much is the average/entry level salary for an English teacher at Wimol?