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!
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