As promised, here is an entry about teaching the monks.
Monday through Thursday evenings, all the volunteers head to a local temple to teach some monks Englis for an hour and a half. For the younger monks, this is on top of their full day of school (which includes some English as well as all the other subjects). The monks that come for English range in age from 13-22. The younger ones are pretty beginner, while the advanced ones can have a conversation in English fairly easily.
Teaching monks is completely fascinating. First of all, there are a million rules for monks (although the ones here seem to be a bit lax about them..like listening to music). For example, monks cannot touch girls. This sounds like an easy thing to avoid until you find yourself tiptoeing around trying not to accidentally bump into anyone or anything. Handing a pen to someone counts as "touching" because you are touching the same object at the same time. This becomes a bit challenging when you are trying to teach and pass out papers or hand someone a whiteboard marker.
We've been doing various games, speaking practice, writing activities and more. Yesterday we had them create their own superhero. Tonight they will present them. Hopefully there are some good ones.
The monks are all incredibly nice and love to laugh. They are teenage boys after all. They seem to really like having us there, probably because we speak English properly, which they do not get to hear most of the time, we are foreigners, which is always fun, and we give them something entertaining to do in the evening.
Overall, I am pretty excited that on top of teaching primary aged kids, I also have the added bonus of the monks. Not something everyone can boast.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Teaching - Primary School Edition
Happy June!
Here is a bit of an overview of teaching at the primary school.
I teach every weekday morning at Scorpion school in Nongkhai. At first I was teaching with two English girls, but now they have left so I teach with one girl from Switzerland. We bike to the school which takes about 10 minutes and start our first class at 9am. The order of the three classes differs throughout the week. So Monday might be 4,5,6 then Tuesday 5,6,4 then Wednesday 6,5,4 etc. The grades do not seem to exactl coincide with US ones. I'd say subtract one. So grade 6 in Thailand is about a fifth grade in the US. A bit about each class:
Grade 4 - There are 13 students. They are about 8 or 9 years old. There are only 4 girls and the rest boys. They are extremely enthusiastic and energetic. Their English level is on the low side but they always smile and enjoy whatever we are doing. We are currently working on teaching letter sounds as well as basic conversation skills (as we're doing with all the classes). These include What is your name? How are you? How old are you? What do you like? etc.
Grade 5 - There are 8 students. They are about 9 or 10 years old. There are 3 boys, 5 girls. They are the best behaved class and hardworking but enjoy a good game. We are starting to show them how to put sounds together to make words, as well as concentrating on conversations.
Grade 6- There are 20 students. They are about 10 or 11 years old. There are slightly more girls than boys. The girls liked to play with their cell phones during class, but we quickly stopped that. They can be a handful of a class, but they are also the most advanced in terms of English and can do lots of writing (copying sentences mainly) fairly easily. Again, we are working on putting sounds together and conversations.
After the three classes are finished (one hour each) it is 12 noon and we eat lunch with the other teachers in the staff room. There are about 4 other teachers at the school (besides the little kids teachers) and sometimes one or two of them will eat with us. They speak very little English but they do try to speak to us together. With our little bit of Thai, we get by.
When we leave the school, all the little kids that we don't teach (maybe 5 or 6 years old) run up to us on our bikes and want to touch our hand or hand us flowers. We hear choruses of Hello! Goodbye! as we leave. It is a nice way to end the morning.
The teaching is definitely tiring, but the challenge is nice. I have been using the internet to help plan lessions and get ideas for songs and games. Also, I am pretty lucky as I am pretty much the only volunteer who has stayed at the same school the whole time, everyone else has swtiched around. Some people teach at the Monk school during the day to the teenage monks and some teach English at the college for Business and Tourism to 14-22 year olds.
Next post will be about teaching the monks, which we do in the evenings! Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend!
Here is a bit of an overview of teaching at the primary school.
I teach every weekday morning at Scorpion school in Nongkhai. At first I was teaching with two English girls, but now they have left so I teach with one girl from Switzerland. We bike to the school which takes about 10 minutes and start our first class at 9am. The order of the three classes differs throughout the week. So Monday might be 4,5,6 then Tuesday 5,6,4 then Wednesday 6,5,4 etc. The grades do not seem to exactl coincide with US ones. I'd say subtract one. So grade 6 in Thailand is about a fifth grade in the US. A bit about each class:
Grade 4 - There are 13 students. They are about 8 or 9 years old. There are only 4 girls and the rest boys. They are extremely enthusiastic and energetic. Their English level is on the low side but they always smile and enjoy whatever we are doing. We are currently working on teaching letter sounds as well as basic conversation skills (as we're doing with all the classes). These include What is your name? How are you? How old are you? What do you like? etc.
Grade 5 - There are 8 students. They are about 9 or 10 years old. There are 3 boys, 5 girls. They are the best behaved class and hardworking but enjoy a good game. We are starting to show them how to put sounds together to make words, as well as concentrating on conversations.
Grade 6- There are 20 students. They are about 10 or 11 years old. There are slightly more girls than boys. The girls liked to play with their cell phones during class, but we quickly stopped that. They can be a handful of a class, but they are also the most advanced in terms of English and can do lots of writing (copying sentences mainly) fairly easily. Again, we are working on putting sounds together and conversations.
After the three classes are finished (one hour each) it is 12 noon and we eat lunch with the other teachers in the staff room. There are about 4 other teachers at the school (besides the little kids teachers) and sometimes one or two of them will eat with us. They speak very little English but they do try to speak to us together. With our little bit of Thai, we get by.
When we leave the school, all the little kids that we don't teach (maybe 5 or 6 years old) run up to us on our bikes and want to touch our hand or hand us flowers. We hear choruses of Hello! Goodbye! as we leave. It is a nice way to end the morning.
The teaching is definitely tiring, but the challenge is nice. I have been using the internet to help plan lessions and get ideas for songs and games. Also, I am pretty lucky as I am pretty much the only volunteer who has stayed at the same school the whole time, everyone else has swtiched around. Some people teach at the Monk school during the day to the teenage monks and some teach English at the college for Business and Tourism to 14-22 year olds.
Next post will be about teaching the monks, which we do in the evenings! Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tasty Delights
Food in Thailand. It really seems to vary by region. My teaching is in the Isan region (Northeast) part of Thailand and so the Isan food is very unique. It brings in influence from Lao and Vietnam. Some foods I have been enjoying:
Restaurant food:
The "Best" restaurant: named by previous volunteers. It gets this name for a reason. Delicious. My favorite dishes here are the Chicken with Cashew Nut and the Sweet and Sour Fish.
Dee Dee's (also known as the Red Balloon by volunteers because it has red Chinese style lanterns out front): Very good. We often come with big groups. Everything is good here. Especially known for the fried catfish.
Daeng ___ (I can't remember the name) is a famous Vietnamese restaurant: Their menu is super short but really all anyone gets is the make your own Vietnamese spring rolls. You put in lettuces, mint leaves, cut up veggies, sausage and an amazing peanut sauce. Really really good.
Street food:
Street food tends to be cheaper. We have street food for dinner most weeknights. Usually we end up going to Prajak road (one over from the main one, Meechai) where they have tons of street carts (all safe to eat :) ) Street food might consist of pad thai, fried rice, noodle soup, etc. Usually it's pretty basic. They fry it up for you on demand though.
Lunch at school:
Weekdays they feed us lunch at school. Usually this is rice and veggies or maybe noodles.
The "Ladies":
Named by previous volunteers, there are various street carts that we have named based on the food they serve. Usually it is a female serving, hence the "lady" part. Here are some of my favorites:
Curry Lady
Pineapple Lady (serves cut up pineapple as well as other fruit)
Milkshake Lady (not a real milkshake. Just fresh fruit and ice blended. My favorite is watermelon)
Banana Pancake Lady (tried the banana one once but I don't really like banana so now I just get plan pancake. )
Pad Thai Lady
Fried Rice Lady
Really, this is just the drop in the bucket of what there is to eat and what I've had. I've noticed that a lot of the food is very different from a Thai restaurant I'd go to in the US, so maybe a lot of that is from other regions like the Central (Bangkok) region or the Southern (beach) region. Regardless, the food is good and cheap. :)
Restaurant food:
The "Best" restaurant: named by previous volunteers. It gets this name for a reason. Delicious. My favorite dishes here are the Chicken with Cashew Nut and the Sweet and Sour Fish.
Dee Dee's (also known as the Red Balloon by volunteers because it has red Chinese style lanterns out front): Very good. We often come with big groups. Everything is good here. Especially known for the fried catfish.
Daeng ___ (I can't remember the name) is a famous Vietnamese restaurant: Their menu is super short but really all anyone gets is the make your own Vietnamese spring rolls. You put in lettuces, mint leaves, cut up veggies, sausage and an amazing peanut sauce. Really really good.
Street food:
Street food tends to be cheaper. We have street food for dinner most weeknights. Usually we end up going to Prajak road (one over from the main one, Meechai) where they have tons of street carts (all safe to eat :) ) Street food might consist of pad thai, fried rice, noodle soup, etc. Usually it's pretty basic. They fry it up for you on demand though.
Lunch at school:
Weekdays they feed us lunch at school. Usually this is rice and veggies or maybe noodles.
The "Ladies":
Named by previous volunteers, there are various street carts that we have named based on the food they serve. Usually it is a female serving, hence the "lady" part. Here are some of my favorites:
Curry Lady
Pineapple Lady (serves cut up pineapple as well as other fruit)
Milkshake Lady (not a real milkshake. Just fresh fruit and ice blended. My favorite is watermelon)
Banana Pancake Lady (tried the banana one once but I don't really like banana so now I just get plan pancake. )
Pad Thai Lady
Fried Rice Lady
Really, this is just the drop in the bucket of what there is to eat and what I've had. I've noticed that a lot of the food is very different from a Thai restaurant I'd go to in the US, so maybe a lot of that is from other regions like the Central (Bangkok) region or the Southern (beach) region. Regardless, the food is good and cheap. :)
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Day in the Life
Thanks for all the input on what to write everyone! I now have enough entry topic to keep me busy for a looong time. Here's a quick one for what my daily life is like currently:
7:30am ish- Wake up and get ready
8:45am - Bike with 2 other volunteers to a local primary school (called Scorpion School. I personally think its a great name for a school)
9am-12 noon - Teach 3 classes of English to years 4,5,6 (approximately 3rd-5th grade in the US or 8-10 years old). Their English is at varying degress but is pretty basic. We're focusing on conversation and vocabulary. I'd like to start on phonics soon. They have a surprising (to me) amount of materials (pencils, pens, notebooks, workbooks in Thai and English, and whiteout). They love having us there since foreigners are so exciting in general. Also they like learning English.
12 noon - They feed us lunch at school. This is usually some simple fried rice or something.
1-5:30pm - Free Time. For me, this usually involves a good chunk of time at the internet cafe (that has air conditioning, bonus) , maybe a stop at 7-Eleven (has all the basics), and then sometimes a fruit drink, sitting at the guesthouse by the river, etc etc. It has mostly been catching up on things, taking care of boring stuff (buying essentials). On the weekend, we did more exploring as a group than now during the week.
6-7:30 pm- Teach the monks at a local temple. They are ages 13-22. This is pretty fun as they love to talk to us and joke around. Pretty neat thing to get to do too. Their English is not bad, and can talk to us, unlike the kids. They like to play games like BINGO.
Evening - Eat if I didn't before the monks. This week we have Thai language lessons at the house (which is pretty much hopeless), but in future weeks it'll probably be hanging out at the house.
Well, that's pretty much the basics of a day in the life. I think I want to hold off on talking about teaching more until I've done it a few more days (only 2 days so far), so I'll write about some other topic next. Also, sorry there are no photos to accompany this. Definitely not as dynamic, but they will be all the more exciting when you see them when I'm back.
- Vi
7:30am ish- Wake up and get ready
8:45am - Bike with 2 other volunteers to a local primary school (called Scorpion School. I personally think its a great name for a school)
9am-12 noon - Teach 3 classes of English to years 4,5,6 (approximately 3rd-5th grade in the US or 8-10 years old). Their English is at varying degress but is pretty basic. We're focusing on conversation and vocabulary. I'd like to start on phonics soon. They have a surprising (to me) amount of materials (pencils, pens, notebooks, workbooks in Thai and English, and whiteout). They love having us there since foreigners are so exciting in general. Also they like learning English.
12 noon - They feed us lunch at school. This is usually some simple fried rice or something.
1-5:30pm - Free Time. For me, this usually involves a good chunk of time at the internet cafe (that has air conditioning, bonus) , maybe a stop at 7-Eleven (has all the basics), and then sometimes a fruit drink, sitting at the guesthouse by the river, etc etc. It has mostly been catching up on things, taking care of boring stuff (buying essentials). On the weekend, we did more exploring as a group than now during the week.
6-7:30 pm- Teach the monks at a local temple. They are ages 13-22. This is pretty fun as they love to talk to us and joke around. Pretty neat thing to get to do too. Their English is not bad, and can talk to us, unlike the kids. They like to play games like BINGO.
Evening - Eat if I didn't before the monks. This week we have Thai language lessons at the house (which is pretty much hopeless), but in future weeks it'll probably be hanging out at the house.
Well, that's pretty much the basics of a day in the life. I think I want to hold off on talking about teaching more until I've done it a few more days (only 2 days so far), so I'll write about some other topic next. Also, sorry there are no photos to accompany this. Definitely not as dynamic, but they will be all the more exciting when you see them when I'm back.
- Vi
Sunday, May 16, 2010
First few days
Here is what the first few days looked like, starting with the traveling bit.
I flew out of SFO (luckily getting away with a 50.6 pound backpack when the maximum is 50!) at 1:35am and pretty much slept the entire 13 hour flight to Taipei. Except for the two meals they served, one being at about 3 or 4 am I would guess. Is that normal?? After a few hours waiting in the Taipei airport, I flew 3 more hours to Bangkok. Grabbed a shuttle bus to the train station in town. It was a pretty neat bus trip through the town and I saw nothing riot, etc related (as you'll be glad to hear). I got to the train station at 2pm and the next (and only) train to Nongkhai left at 8pm, so it was a long 6 hours in the train station. It did have shops and food stalls so I thoroughly explored it.
I was on a second class sleeper train with air con that got me to Nongkhai in the morning. I was relieved to see a guy with a sign that read Travel To Teach when I arrived. He turned out to be one of the coordinators and took me straight to the dorm to show me around. After a few hours of getting settled in, the other volunteers got back home from teaching. There are 6 other girls here at the moment (4 from England who are friends from home, 1 from Holland, and 1 from Switzerland who arrived the same day as me). They have all been here for 1-2 months already and are getting ready to continue on in their travels. In fact, the girl from Holland left on Sunday along with one of the English girls and the other 3 English girls will leave next week. We have picked up 2 boys (both American I believe) over the weekend so our current number is 7.
As mentioned in the first email, the next couple days were full of biking, eating, etc. I have already learned the favorite spots of the other volunteers and we definitely frequent them. Two days ago it rained super hard for 30 minutes and now it has been considerably cooler since, which is just fantastic.
Alright, so that's the recap for now. I will post for sure once I've done some teaching which should be in a few days. If there is any specific topic of interest, let me know and I will try to write about it. I figure a what I did at 9 am, 10am, 11am blog post daily is not very interesting. I figure maybe focus around topics like food, transport, etc? Let me know what you want to hear about through a comment or email and I'll see what I can do.
- Vi
I flew out of SFO (luckily getting away with a 50.6 pound backpack when the maximum is 50!) at 1:35am and pretty much slept the entire 13 hour flight to Taipei. Except for the two meals they served, one being at about 3 or 4 am I would guess. Is that normal?? After a few hours waiting in the Taipei airport, I flew 3 more hours to Bangkok. Grabbed a shuttle bus to the train station in town. It was a pretty neat bus trip through the town and I saw nothing riot, etc related (as you'll be glad to hear). I got to the train station at 2pm and the next (and only) train to Nongkhai left at 8pm, so it was a long 6 hours in the train station. It did have shops and food stalls so I thoroughly explored it.
I was on a second class sleeper train with air con that got me to Nongkhai in the morning. I was relieved to see a guy with a sign that read Travel To Teach when I arrived. He turned out to be one of the coordinators and took me straight to the dorm to show me around. After a few hours of getting settled in, the other volunteers got back home from teaching. There are 6 other girls here at the moment (4 from England who are friends from home, 1 from Holland, and 1 from Switzerland who arrived the same day as me). They have all been here for 1-2 months already and are getting ready to continue on in their travels. In fact, the girl from Holland left on Sunday along with one of the English girls and the other 3 English girls will leave next week. We have picked up 2 boys (both American I believe) over the weekend so our current number is 7.
As mentioned in the first email, the next couple days were full of biking, eating, etc. I have already learned the favorite spots of the other volunteers and we definitely frequent them. Two days ago it rained super hard for 30 minutes and now it has been considerably cooler since, which is just fantastic.
Alright, so that's the recap for now. I will post for sure once I've done some teaching which should be in a few days. If there is any specific topic of interest, let me know and I will try to write about it. I figure a what I did at 9 am, 10am, 11am blog post daily is not very interesting. I figure maybe focus around topics like food, transport, etc? Let me know what you want to hear about through a comment or email and I'll see what I can do.
- Vi
Greetings from Thailand
(As emailed out, just copy/pasted here to keep everything together)
I have made it to my placement location in Thailand (after 2.5 days of traveling) and finally had a chance to get to an internet cafe. I can tell that I might not be able to get online as much as I would have liked, but I will certainly do my best. So far I have riden in a tuk tuk, rented a bicycle for my stay, gone to a giant Tesco (like a Walmart), had a watermelon iced drink by the Mekong river and met the other 6 volunteers (all girls) who are staying in my dorm. Also, it is incredibly hot, like in the 90s with humiditiy, and I am sweating nonstop.
Sorry that's all I have time for for now, but I've been writing things down to write some more when I have time for a longer session. Just wanted to let you all know that I am here safe and sound.
I miss you all!- Vi
I have made it to my placement location in Thailand (after 2.5 days of traveling) and finally had a chance to get to an internet cafe. I can tell that I might not be able to get online as much as I would have liked, but I will certainly do my best. So far I have riden in a tuk tuk, rented a bicycle for my stay, gone to a giant Tesco (like a Walmart), had a watermelon iced drink by the Mekong river and met the other 6 volunteers (all girls) who are staying in my dorm. Also, it is incredibly hot, like in the 90s with humiditiy, and I am sweating nonstop.
Sorry that's all I have time for for now, but I've been writing things down to write some more when I have time for a longer session. Just wanted to let you all know that I am here safe and sound.
I miss you all!- Vi
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
And it begins..
So here's the trip plan:
After the teaching is over, Erica will come out to join and we will be traveling around Southeast Asia for 3 weeks.
I will hopefully be able to update this blog fairly often. I am still trying to figure out the best option for photos, so I'll have to see when I get there which is the easiest way.
Feel free to comment on the blog or send an email to my regular email address for any reason. I would love to hear from you. I'll see you all again come July!
- Vi
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